all public business and was not anxious to go into the king's
service, as his two brothers had done and found in it an honourable
end. He was accustomed to say that it was no glory to carry a sword
at one's side, that he did not know of a more ignoble thing than the
calling of arms, and that a village scavenger was, in his opinion,
high over a brigadier or a marshal of France. Those were his
sayings. I confess it does not seem to me either bad or malicious,
rather daring and whimsical. But in some way they must be blameable,
as Cadette Saint-Avit said that the rector of her parish considered
them to be contrary to the order established by God in this world
and opposed to that part of the Bible where God is given a name
which means Lord of Hosts, and that would be a great sin.

"This M. Hercules had so little sympathy with the court that he
refused to travel to Versailles to be presented to his Majesty
according to his birthright. He said, 'The king does not come to me
and I do not go to him,' and anyone of sense, my Jacquot, can
understand that such is not a natural saying."

My good mother looked inquiringly and anxiously at me and went on:

"What more I have to inform you about, my dear Jacquot, is still
less believable. However, Cadette Saint-Avit spoke of it as of a
certainty. And so I will tell you that M. Hercules d'Asterac, when
he lived on his estate, had no other care but to bottle the rays of
the sun. Cadette Saint-Avit does not know how he managed it, but she
is sure that after a time, in the flagons well corked and heated in
water baths, tiny little women took form, charming figures and
dressed like theatre princesses. You laugh, Jacquot; however, one
ought not to joke over such things when one can see the consequence.