"Oh! as for you," he said, "no one accuses you. I dare say you played your part in good faith, though it is known that you were used to deceive people by bringing the child from the Bourbonnais. But you are so simple, Tiennet, you may never have suspected anything.--The devil take me!" he continued, addressing the company, "if that fellow isn't as stupid as a basket. He is capable of being godfather to a child believing all the while they were christening a clock. He probably went into the Bourbonnais to fetch this godson of his, who, they told him, was found in a cabbage, and he brought it back in a pilgrim's sack. In fact he is such a slave and good cousin to the girl, that if she had tried to make him believe the boy was like him he would have thought so too." THIRTIETH EVENING. There was no use in protesting and getting angry; the company were more inclined to laugh than to listen, for it is always a great delight to misbehaving fellows to speak ill of a poor girl. They make haste to plunge her in the mire, reserving the right to deny it if they find she is innocent. In the midst of their slanderous speeches, however, a loud voice, slightly weakened by illness but still capable of drowning every other in the room, made itself heard. It was that of the master of the tavern, long accustomed to quell the dissensions of wine and the hubbub of junketing. "Hold your tongues," he said, "and listen to me, or I'll turn you out this moment, if I never open the house again. Be silent about an honest girl whom you decry because you have all found her too virtuous. As to the real parents of the child who has given rise to these tales, tell them to their face what fault you find with them, for here they are before you. Yes," he continued, drawing Mariton, who was holding Charlot in her arms and weeping, up to him, "here is the mother of my heir, and this is my son whom I recognize by my marriage to this good woman. If you ask me for exact dates, I shall tell you to mind your own business; nevertheless, to any who have the right to question me, I will show deeds which prove that I have always recognized the child as mine, and that his mother was my legitimate wife before his birth, though the matter was kept secret."