were getting a good price for corn... But he was just too stupid, when it comes down to it—you just don't get mixed up in dreadful business like that.'

Maurice, still overcome, gave another dejected shrug.

'The Emperor! Oh, him... I used to really like that man, in spite of all my beliefs in freedom and the republic... Oh, I did! It was in my blood, probably from my grandfather... And now look! That's all gone rotten, too, and what's to become of us?'

His eyes took on a wild look and he let out such a cry of pain that Jean, suddenly worried, was about to get up again when he saw Henriette coming in. She'd just woken up, hearing the sound of their voices from next door. A pallida bandit, hunched inside his blue woollen shirt, Sambuc didn't even hear him, he was so infuriated with Prosper, his Honest Joe of a brother as he put it, who was only just deciding to open up.

'Hey, you! D'you think we're some kind of beggars, leaving us out here in such weather?'

But while Prosper calmly shrugged his shoulders without answering, and led the horse and cart into the stable, it was old Fouchard who stepped in once again, leaning over the wheelbarrow.

'So, you've brought me a couple of dead sheep, have you... Good job it's freezing, otherwise I'm sure they wouldn't smell at all nice.'

Cabasse and Ducat, Sambuc's two lieutenants who accompanied him on every outing, cried out in protest.

'Oh!' said the first, the typical Provençal loudmouth, 'they're