Six months afterwards, Camusot received the appointment of assistant
judge at Paris, and later he became an examining magistrate. Goodman
Blondet was made a councillor to the Royal-Court; he held the post just
long enough to secure a retiring pension, and then went back to live in
his pretty little house. Joseph Blondet sat in his father’s seat at the
court till the end of his days; there was not the faintest chance of
promotion for him, but he became Mlle. Blandereau’s husband; and she, no
doubt, is leading to-day, in the little flower-covered brick house,
as dull a life as any carp in a marble basin. Michu and Camusot also
received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, while Blondet became an
Officer. As for M. Sauvager, deputy public prosecutor, he was sent to
Corsica, to du Croisier’s great relief; he had decidedly no mind to
bestow his niece upon that functionary.
Du Croisier himself, urged by President du Ronceret, appealed from the
finding of the Tribunal to the Court-Royal, and lost his cause. The
Liberals throughout the department held that little d’Esgrignon was
guilty; while the Royalists, on the other hand, told frightful stories
of plots woven by “that abominable du Croisier” to compass his revenge.
A duel was fought indeed; the hazard of arms favored du Croisier, the
young Count was dangerously wounded, and his antagonist maintained his
words. This affair embittered the strife between the two parties; the
Liberals brought it forward on all occasions. Meanwhile du Croisier
never could carry his election, and saw no hope of marrying his niece to
the Count, especially after the duel.
A month after the decision of the Tribunal was confirmed in the
Court-Royal, Chesnel died, exhausted by the dreadful strain, which had
weakened and shaken him mentally and physically. He died in the hour of
victory, like some old faithful hound that has brought the boar to bay,
and gets his death on the tusks. He died as happily as might be, seeing
that he left the great House all but ruined, and the heir in penury,
bored to death by an idle life, and without a hope of establishing
himself. That bitter thought and his own exhaustion, no doubt, hastened
the old man’s end. One great comfort came to him as he lay amid the
wreck of so many hopes, sinking under the burden of so many cares--the
old Marquis, at his sister’s entreaty, gave him back all the old
friendship. The great lord came to the little house in the Rue du
Bercail, and sat by his old servant’s bedside, all unaware how much
that servant had done and sacrificed for him. Chesnel sat upright, and
repeated Simeon’s cry.--The Marquis allowed them to bury Chesnel in the
castle chapel; they laid him crosswise at the foot of the tomb which
was waiting for the Marquis himself, the last, in a sense, of the
d’Esgrignons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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