"And who," I said indignantly, "are you, I should like to know, Monsieur, who stop travellers on the highway, and ask for papers?"
"Merely the President of the Local Committee," he replied.
"And do you suppose," I said, fuming at his folly, "that I bound my hands, and stifled myself under that hay, on purpose? On purpose to pass through your wretched village?"
"I suppose nothing, Monsieur," he answered coolly. "But this is the road to Turin, where M. d'Artois is said to be collecting the disaffected; and to Nîmes, where mischievous persons are flaunting the red cockade. And without papers, no one passes."
"But what will you do with me?" I asked, seeing that the clowns, who gaped round us, regarded him as nothing less than a Solomon.
"Detain you, M. le Vicomte, until you procure papers," he answered.
"But, _mon Dieu!_" I said. "That is not so easily done here. Who is likely to know me?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur does not leave without the papers," he said. "That is all."
And he spoke truly, that was all. In vain I laid the facts before him, and asked if any one would voluntarily suffer, merely to hide his lack of papers, what I had undergone; in vain I asked if the state in which I had been found was not itself proof that I had been robbed; if a man could tie his own hands, and pile hay on himself. In vain even that I said I knew who had robbed me; the last statement only made matters worse.
"Indeed!" he said ironically. "Then, pray, who was it?"
"Indeed! I saw him yesterday," I answered.
"Then that settles the matter," the Committee-man answered, with a grim smile; and his little court smiled too. "After that, we certainly cannot lose sight of M. le Vicomte."
And so well did he keep his word, that when, to avoid the cold that began to pierce me, I went into the wretched inn, and sat down on the hearth to think over the position, two of the yokels accompanied me; and when I went out again, and stood looking distrustfully up and down the road, two more were at my elbow, as by magic. Whether I turned this way or that, one was sure to spring up, and, if I walked too far from the house, would touch me on the arm, and gruffly order me back. Mont Aigoual itself, lifting its crest, bleak, and stern, and cold, above the valley, was not more sure than their attendance, or more immovable.