Only the Doctor's intervention saved Roger from a nasty mauling. In his sonorous voice the old man quelled the tumult. He upbraided the sailors for their discourtesy to a citizen of a country with which France was now at peace, and pointed out that since the late war had begun in '78 no one so young as Roger could possibly have had a hand in the making of it.
A blue-eyed shrew, attracted by Roger's good looks, also took his part and turned her screaming abuse upon the now hesitant sailors, calling them a pack of great, misbegotten bullies for attempting to browbeat so young a lad.
At the Doctor's suggestion Roger stood the company a round of drinks, and there the matter ended. But, when they had gone up to their room that night, he told Roger that among the ignorant in France there was still much resentment against the English, on account of the additional taxes and other hardships that the war had brought upon them; so he thought it would be a wise move if his young companion took another name and gave himself out to be a native of some other country.
As he was very proud of being English Roger was, at first, most loath to adopt the Doctor's suggestion, but eventually he was persuaded of its wisdom, and, after some discussion, it was decided that to account for his poor French and heavy accent he should pass himself off as a Frenchman hailing from Alsace; since most of the inhabitants of that province were brought up to speak only their mother tongue, which was German.
It was then agreed that Roger should keep his Christian name, which, pronounced as Rojé, was not uncommon in France, and change his surname to Breuc, that being the nearest French spelling to Brook.
On the Monday they set out again, crossing the Seine and journeying from village to village through central Normandy by way of Bernay and Lisieux to Caen. The August days were warm and pleasant, the life never lacking in variety and interest. Their stock was dwindling but Roger's money-bag grew satisfactorily heavier and when they reached Caen on the thirtieth of the month their takings totalled twenty-three louis.
Now that they had once more reached a city the Doctor again pressed for a "little holiday." But after some trouble Roger managed to argue him out of it on the grounds that another two days would see them in September, so they could count on only five or six weeks more good weather, and therefore should make the most of it.
The Doctor admitted that there was sound sense in this, as journeyman-doctoring in winter was a poor business, and the more they were able to put by while the good weather lasted the more frequently they would be able to lie up when storms were turning the roads into quagmires.
That afternoon, instead of remaining in the stuffy city, they walked out to a meadow, from which they could see the spires of the great Norman churches, and lay there for a while in the sunshine.
They dozed for a little, then, on their rousing, the Doctor asked Roger, apropos of nothing, how he liked the life he was leading and if he would be willing to continue their partnership as a permanency.
" 'Tis well enough," Roger replied, "and I am mighty grateful that I fell in with you. But as soon as I have saved sufficient to make me independent for a while I plan to return to England."
"Had you not that in view, would you be content to remain with me?" inquired the Doctor.
Roger had developed a great fondness for the old man and while he knew that-his ambitions could never be satisfied by such a life, he was loath to hurt his companion's feelings, so he said:
"We get on so well together that I would hate to part with you, and the life itself has many attractions. Even if we fool some people and endanger others by selling them drastic remedies, the good we do to the great majority is out of all proportion to the harm we may do the few. Yet at times it saddens me.
"How so?"
" 'Tis the sore straits in which those from whom we make a living, live themselves. They herd together like animals in their miserable, broken-down cottages, many of which have leaking roofs and hardly any of which even have windows to keep out the bitter winds of winter. Often I am ashamed to take from them the miserable sous they bring us."
"I'll not gainsay that they are poor," replied the Doctor, "but the majority of them are by no means as poor as you might think. In most cases 'tis for quite a different reason that they refrain from patching their roofs and putting windows in their houses. As you must have seen, on Sundays and Feast-days the village women bedeck themselves in very different raiment to that which they wear in the fields. Their layers of striped petticoats and lace headdresses have cost good money, and few of them are without gold chains and crosses for their necks, so they can well afford to part with a few sous for a beauty ointment."
"Why, then, do they live in such miserable conditions?"
" 'Tis on account of the taille,, my young friend, the most monstrously stupid form of taxation that was ever devised by a government of fools. The King's Intendants assess each village at whatever lump sum they may judge it to be worth, and the village syndics, whether they like it or not, are forced to collect the money from the villagers. The syndics, in turn, are empowered to assess each householder quite arbitrarily, not upon his actual capacity to pay, but simply on the amount they think they can squeeze out of him. Each man is taxed, therefore, upon his presumed Wealth, and this is judged by his mode of living and apparent prosperity. As a result every villager makes an outward show of the direst poverty in order to get off as lightly as he can. This not only leads them to the self-infliction of many hardships which there would otherwise be no call for them to bear but it also strikes most savagely at the true interests of the country, since the peasants leave much of their land untilled from fear that bigger crops would land them with a higher tax assessment."
"What incredible folly," said Roger. "But why do not the nobles who own so much of the land make representations to the King, and get the tax laws altered?"
The Doctor shook his head. "The nobility of France still retains its privileges. Most unjustly all persons of rank are exempt from taxation, and they still possess the sole rights in shooting and snaring game, which is hard on the peasantry; but for many decades past they have lost all power of influencing the government. 'Twas the great Cardinal de Richelieu who destroyed the power of the feudal lords, and Le Grand Monarque completed the process by compelling them all to leave their estates and live as idlers at his court of Versailles in order to make a splendid background for himself. From that time on the running of the country fell into the hands of the Kings almost entirely, and they could know little of its state, as they were advised only by a small clique of greedy favourites and Finance Ministers who depended on the Farmers of the Revenue to suggest ways of raising money as best they could."
"They seem to have made a pretty mess of things," Roger commented. "Our nobility in England would not stand for such mismanagement, nor would the people, either. Why, they cut off the King's head with less reason a hundred and forty years ago."
" Twas neither the nobility nor the people who cut off King Charles's head," corrected the Doctor gently. " 'Twas the bourgeoisie; the lawyers and the rich tradespeople of the cities. And 'twill be the same here if the present discontents come to a head. The peasantry are too apathetic and too cowed to rise; the nobility has all to lose and naught to gain by so doing. But there is money in the towns, and money begets both ambition and jealousy of the privileges of the ruling caste. Of late years the reading of books by such as can read has spread apace, and such works as those of Messieurs de Quesnay, de Mirabeau, de Morelly and Jean Jacques Rousseau have spread abroad this cry for equality. Yet those who shout loudest have not in mind equality for the peasant with themselves but equality for themselves with the nobility."