Officers and soldiers, preoccupied with other matters, and growing surly as the twilight deepened, passed on without attending to her.
"Your general took no notice of that poor woman who asked for bread," said Jean Oullier to the chasseur who was on his right.
"Because he did not give her anything. Let him beware. Whoso repulses the open palm must fear the closed fist, says the proverb. Harm will happen to us."
"If you take that prediction to yourself, my good man, you are not mistaken, inasmuch as you are already in peril."
"Yes, and that is why I would like to conjure it away."
"Feel in my pocket for me and take out a piece of money."
"To give to that old woman, and then she'll share her prayers between me who give the alms and you who enable her to get them."
The chasseur shrugged his shoulders; but superstitions are singularly contagious, and those attached to ideas of charity are more so than others. The soldier, while pretending to be above such nonsense, thought he ought not to refuse to do the kindness Jean Oullier asked of him, which might, moreover, bring down the blessing of Heaven on both of them.
The troop was at this moment wheeling to the right into the sunken road which leads to Vieille-Vigne. The general stopped his horse to watch the men file past him, and see with his own eyes that all the arrangements he had ordered were carried out; it thus happened that he saw Jean Oullier speaking to the chasseur, and he also saw the soldier's action.
"What do you mean by letting the prisoner speak to strangers on the road?" he said sharply.
"Halt!" cried the general; "arrest that woman, and search her."
The order was instantly obeyed, but nothing was found on the old beggar-woman but a few pieces of copper money, which the general examined with the utmost care. In vain did he turn and re-turn the coins; nothing could he find in the least suspicious about them. He put the coins in his pocket, however, giving to the old woman a five-franc piece in exchange. Jean Oullier watched the general's actions with a sarcastic smile.
"Well, you see," he said in a low voice but loud enough for the beggar-woman to hear him without losing a single word, "you see the poor alms of a _prisoner_" (he emphasized the word) "have brought you luck, old mother; and that's another reason still why you should remember me in your prayers. A dozen _Ave Marias_ said for him will greatly help the salvation of a poor devil."