“No need to burn it; let us adopt a line of conduct which will baffle the schemes of these Lilliputians. Judging by threats, general, they are resolved on war to the knife against you; and therefore since you mention incendiarism, let me beg of you to insure all your buildings, and all your farmhouses.” “Michaud, do you know whom they mean by ‘Shopman’? Yesterday, as I was riding along by the Thune, I heard some little rascals cry out, ‘The Shopman! here’s the Shopman!’ and then they ran away.” “Ask Sibilet; the answer is in his line, he likes to make you angry,” said Michaud, with a pained look. “But--if you will have an answer--well, that’s a nickname these brigands have given you, general.” “What does it mean?” “It means, general--well, it refers to your father.” “Ha! the curs!” cried the count, turning livid. “Yes, Michaud, my father was a shopkeeper, an upholsterer; the countess doesn’t know it. Oh! that I should ever--well! after all, I have waltzed with queens and empresses. I’ll tell her this very night,” he cried, after a pause. “They also call you a coward,” continued Michaud. “Ha!” “They ask how you managed to save yourself at Essling when nearly all your comrades perished.” The accusation brought a smile to the general’s lips. “Michaud, I shall go at once to the Prefecture!” he cried, with a sort of fury, “if it is only to get the policies of insurance you ask for. Let Madame la comtesse know that I have gone. Ha, ha! they want war, do they? Well, they shall have it; I’ll take my pleasure in thwarting them,--every one of them, those bourgeois of Soulanges, and their peasantry! We are in the enemy’s country, therefore prudence! Tell the foresters to keep within the limits of the law. Poor Vatel, take care of him. The countess is inclined to be timid; she must know nothing of all this; otherwise I could never get her to come back here.” Neither the general nor Michaud understood their real peril. Michaud had been too short a time in this Burgundian valley to realize the enemy’s power, though he saw its action. The general, for his part, believed in the supremacy of the law.