"Where on earth have you been working? I couldn't find you anywhere."

And Jacquinot would reply in a cajoling tone:

"Faith, you wouldn't tell me what work to begin on, and I was afraid of doing something wrong; I didn't want to do anything without your orders."

With a man of Frimousset's stamp, comfort, when it exists, soon gives place to straitened circ.u.mstances, and then to poverty; among the small as among the great, there is no fortune which is large enough to withstand disorder. After five years of married life, Nicole was obliged to sell her field and her pasture, all because Monsieur Jacquinot never knew where to begin when it was a question of working.

Meanwhile Nicole had seen her family increased by three small boys, healthy boys with excellent appet.i.tes. Three children more and several pieces of land less could not bring comfort to Frimousset's home. Then it was that Nicole conceived the idea of becoming a nurse; and as the peasant was as active and determined as her husband was lazy and shiftless, her plan was soon carried out.

And that was why Jasmin, when he went to Rue Sainte-Apolline, to the Nurses' Bureau, had found the peasant from Gagny, whom he had selected because of her pleasant face, and whom he had carried in triumph to his master, the Marquis de Grandvilain.

Nicole was an excellent woman, and she became sincerely attached to the child that was placed in her charge; she took him as soon as he cried, and was never weary of giving him the breast and of dancing him in her arms; she took care too that he should always be neat and clean. But the peasant woman was a mother too; she had three _gas_--that is what she called them,--and despite all her affection for her nursling, it was to her _gas_ that Nicole gave the sweetmeats, the preserves, the biscuit and the gingerbread of which Madame la Marquise de Grandvilain had not failed to give her an abundant supply, urging her not to spare them, never to deny Cherubin anything, and to send to her for other delicacies when those should be exhausted.

Luckily for Cherubin, Nicole did not follow to the letter the instructions that were given her. As one is a mother before being a nurse, the peasant woman necessarily had more affection for her children than for her foster-child. She gave milk to the latter, while the others stuffed themselves with dainties, candy and gingerbread, which soon upset their health, whereas, on the contrary, little Grandvilain became fresh and rosy and plump and hearty.

The coming of the nursling placed the Frimousset household upon its feet once more. Nicole had asked for thirty francs a month, but the marquis had said to her:

"Just let my son get well, let him recover his health, and I will give you twice that!"

And Jacquinot, who had more time than ever to idle away and to spend in the wine-shop, because his wife, being occupied with her nursling, could not keep an eye upon him, exclaimed every day:

"My eye, Nicole, that was a mighty good idea of yours to be a nurse! If you only had three or four little brats like this, we should be mighty well off, I tell you!"

And Cherubin's little foster-brothers, who did nothing but eat sweetmeats and gingerbread, were also delighted that their mother had a nursling who provided them with so many good things, thanks to which they were constantly ill.

Cherubin had been at his nurse's house only six weeks, when, on a fine day in autumn, a fashionable carriage stopped on the public square of Gagny, which square is not absolutely beautiful, although the guardhouse has been built there.

A vehicle which does not resemble a cart is always an object of wonderment in a village. Five or six women, several old men, several peasants, and a mult.i.tude of children a.s.sembled about the carriage, and were gazing at it with curiosity, when a window was lowered and a man's head appeared.

Instantly a low murmur and a sneering laugh or two were heard among the bystanders, together with such remarks as these, not all of which were uttered in undertones:

"Oh! how ugly he is!"--"Oh! what a face!"--"Is it legal to be as ugly as that, when you have a carriage?"--"Upon my word! I'd rather go afoot!"--"That fellow hasn't been vaccinated!"

There were other reflections of the same sort, which might have reached the ears of him who suggested them, and which it would have been more polite to make in a low tone; but politeness is not the favorite virtue of the peasants of the suburbs of Paris.

Luckily, the man who had put his head out of the window was a little hard of hearing, and, besides, he was not a man to lose his temper for such trifles; on the contrary, a.s.suming a smiling expression, he said, bowing to the a.s.semblage:

"Which of you, my good people, can direct me to Nicole Frimousset's house? I know well enough that it's on a street leading into the square, but that is all I know."

"Nicole Frimousset!" said a peasant about half seas over, who had just come from one wine-shop and was about to enter another; "she's my wife, Nicole is; I am Jacquinot Frimousset, her husband; what do you want of my wife?"

"What do we want of her? Parbleu! we've come to see the little one that we've placed in her charge, and to find out how he is, the dear child."

"The deuce! it's monsieur le marquis!" cried Jacquinot, removing his hat and throwing several children to the ground in order to reach the carriage more quickly. "Excuse me, monsieur le marquis; you see, I didn't know you. I'll show you the way; that's our street over there; it's up hill, but you've got good horses."

And Jacquinot ran ahead of the carriage, shouting at the top of his lungs, and trying to dance.

"Here's little Cherubin's father! Here's the Marquis de Grandvilain, coming to our house! Ah! I'm going to drink his health."

The man who was in the carriage answered:

"No, I am not the marquis, I am Jasmin, his first valet; and mademoiselle who is with me is not madame la marquise; she is Turlurette, her maid. But it's all the same, our masters or us, it's absolutely the same thing."

"What a stupid thing to say, Jasmin," said Turlurette, nudging her companion; "the idea! our masters or us being the same thing!"

"I mean so far as the child we have come to see is concerned. They have sent us to find out about his health; can't we see that as well as our masters? And even better, for we have better eyes than they have."

"You speak of your masters with very little respect, Monsieur Jasmin."

"Mademoiselle, I respect and venerate them, but that doesn't prevent me from saying that they are both of them in a miserable state. What wretched carca.s.ses! They make me feel very sad!"

"Hush, Monsieur Jasmin, here we are!"

The carriage had stopped in front of Frimousset's house, and Jacquinot's shouts had put the whole household in commotion.

"Those are Cherubin's parents," was heard in every direction. The little boys rushed to meet the carriage; Jacquinot went to draw wine to offer to his guests; while Nicole, after hastily washing her nursling and wiping his nose, took him in her arms and presented him to Jasmin and Turlurette, just as they alighted from the carriage, and called out to them:

"Here he is, monsieur and madame; take him, and see how well he is! Ah!

I flatter myself that he wasn't as pretty as that when you gave him to me!"

"True; he's superb!" said Jasmin, kissing the child.

"Yes, he is as well as can be!" said Turlurette, turning little Cherubin over and over in every direction.

But while they admired her nursling, Nicole, who had had time to recover herself, looked closely at Jasmin and Turlurette, and then exclaimed:

"But I say, it seems to me that monsieur and madame ain't the child's father and mother. Pardi! I recognize monsieur by his red nose and his peppered face; he's the one who came to the bureau and picked me out."

"Yes, nurse, you are not mistaken," replied Jasmin, "I am not my master; I mean that I am not the marquis, and that is what I shouted to your husband, but he didn't listen. But that doesn't make any difference; we were sent here, Turlurette and I, to satisfy ourselves about young Grandvilain's health, and to report to monsieur le marquis and his wife."

"You will always be welcome," said Nicole.

"And then you won't refuse to taste our wine and refresh yourselves,"

cried Jacquinot, bringing a huge jar, full to the brim of a wine perfectly _nif_, which means new in the language of the country people.

"I never refuse to taste any wine, and I am always glad to refresh myself, even when I am not warm," replied Jasmin. "But first of all, I must fulfil to the letter my dear master's orders. Nurse, undress the child, if you please, and let me see him all naked, so that I can judge if he is in good condition from top to toe--inclusively."

"Oh, bless my soul! drink and let us alone! That is my business!" said Mademoiselle Turlurette, still keeping the child in her arms.

"Mademoiselle, I will not prevent you from looking at the child too, but I know what my master ordered me to do, and I propose to obey him. Give me Cherubin, and let me make a little Cupid of him."

"I won't give him to you."

"Then I'll take him!"

"Come and try it!"

Jasmin leaped upon the child, but Turlurette would not let him go, and each of them pulled him; Cherubin shrieked, and the nurse, to put an end to this imitation of the judgment of Solomon, adroitly took the child from both of them. In the twinkling of an eye she undressed him, and, handing him to the two servants, bade them kiss her nursling's plump little posterior.