Mathieu lived again in him, such as he appeared in a
piously-preserved portrait representing him at the age of
seven-and-twenty when he had begun the conquest of Chantebled.
Mathieu, for his part, rose, trembling, while Marianne smiled divinely,
for she understood the truth before all the others.
"Who are you, my child?" asked Mathieu, "you, who call me grandfather,
and who resemble me as if you were my brother?"
"I am Dominique, the eldest son of your son Nicolas, who lives with my
mother, Lisbeth, in the vast free country yonder, the other France!"
"And how old are you?"
"I shall be seven-and-twenty next August, when, yonder, the waters of the
Niger, the good giant, come back to fertilize our spreading fields."
"And tell us, are you married, have you any children?"
"I have taken for my wife a French woman, born in Senegal, and in the
brick house which I have built, four children are already growing up
under the flaming sun of the Soudan."
"And tell us also, have you any brothers, any sisters?"
"My father, Nicolas, and Lisbeth, my mother, have had eighteen children,
two of whom are dead. We are sixteen, nine boys and seven girls.
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