Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER VII

CER­TAIN LOST SO­CIAL SPECIES

The es­tate of Les Aigues could not do with­out a stew­ard; for the gen­er­al had no in­ten­tion of re­nounc­ing his win­ter plea­sures in Paris, where he owned a fine house in the rue Neuve-​des-​Math­urines. He there­fore looked about for a suc­ces­sor to Gaubertin; but it is very cer­tain that his search was not as ea­ger as that of Gaubertin him­self, who was seek­ing for the right per­son to put in his way.

Of all con­fi­den­tial po­si­tions there is none that re­quires more trained knowl­edge of its kind, or more ac­tiv­ity, than that of land-​stew­ard to a great es­tate. The dif­fi­cul­ty of find­ing the right man is on­ly ful­ly known to those wealthy land­lords whose prop­er­ty lies be­yond a cer­tain cir­cle around Paris, be­gin­ning at a dis­tance of about one hun­dred and fifty miles. At that point agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tions for the mar­kets of Paris, which war­rant rentals on long leas­es (col­lect­ed of­ten by oth­er ten­ants who are rich them­selves), cease to be cul­ti­vat­ed. The farm­ers who raise them drive to the city in their own cabri­olets to pay their rents in good bank-​bills, un­less they send the mon­ey through their agents in the mar­kets. For this rea­son, the farms of the Seine-​et-​Oise, Seine-​et-​Marne, the Oise, the Eu­re-​et-​Loir, the Low­er Seine, and the Loiret are so de­sir­able that cap­ital can­not al­ways be in­vest­ed there at one and a half per cent. Com­pared to the re­turns on es­tates in Hol­land, Eng­land, and Bel­gium, this re­sult is enor­mous. But at one hun­dred miles from Paris an es­tate re­quires such va­ri­ety of work­ing, its prod­ucts are so dif­fer­ent in kind, that it be­comes a busi­ness, with all the risks at­ten­dant on man­ufac­tur­ing. The wealthy own­er is re­al­ly a mer­chant, forced to look for a mar­ket for his prod­ucts, like the own­er of iron­works or cot­ton fac­to­ries. He does not even es­cape com­pe­ti­tion; the peas­ant, the small pro­pri­etor, is at his heels with an avid­ity which leads to trans­ac­tions to which well-​bred per­sons can­not con­de­scend.

A land-​stew­ard must un­der­stand sur­vey­ing, the cus­toms of the lo­cal­ity, the meth­ods of sale and of la­bor, to­geth­er with a lit­tle quib­bling in the in­ter­ests of those he serves; he must al­so un­der­stand book-​keep­ing and com­mer­cial mat­ters, and be in per­fect health, with a lik­ing for ac­tive life and horse ex­er­cise. His du­ty be­ing to rep­re­sent his mas­ter and to be al­ways in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him, the stew­ard ought not to be a man of the peo­ple. As the salary of his of­fice sel­dom ex­ceeds three thou­sand francs, the prob­lem seems in­sol­uble. How is it pos­si­ble to ob­tain so many qual­ifi­ca­tions for such a very mod­er­ate price,--in a re­gion, more­over, where the men who are pro­vid­ed with them are ad­mis­si­ble to all oth­er em­ploy­ments? Bring down a stranger to fill the place, and you will pay dear for the ex­pe­ri­ence he must ac­quire. Train a young man on the spot, and you are more than like­ly to get a thorn of in­grat­itude in your side. It there­fore be­comes nec­es­sary to choose be­tween in­com­pe­tent hon­esty, which in­jures your prop­er­ty through its blind­ness and in­er­tia, and the clev­er­ness which looks out for it­self. Hence the so­cial nomen­cla­ture and nat­ural his­to­ry of land-​stew­ards as de­fined by a great Pol­ish no­ble.

“There are,” he said, “two kinds of stew­ards: he who thinks on­ly of him­self, and he who thinks of him­self and of us; hap­py the land-​own­er who lays his hands on the lat­ter! As for the stew­ard who would think on­ly of us, he is not to be met with.”

Else­where can be found a stew­ard who thought of this mas­ter's in­ter­ests as well as of his own. (“Un De­but dans la vie,” “Scenes de la vie privee.”) Gaubertin is the stew­ard who thinks of him­self on­ly. To rep­re­sent the third fig­ure of the prob­lem would be to hold up to pub­lic ad­mi­ra­tion a very un­like­ly per­son­age, yet one that was not un­known to the old no­bil­ity, though he has, alas! dis­ap­peared with them. (See “Le Cab­inet des An­tiques,” “Scenes de la vie de province.”) Through the end­less sub­di­vi­sion of for­tunes aris­to­crat­ic habits and cus­toms are in­evitably changed. If there be not now in France twen­ty great for­tunes man­aged by in­ten­dants, in fifty years from now there will not be a hun­dred es­tates in the hands of stew­ards, un­less a great change is made in the law. Ev­ery land-​own­er will be brought by that time to look af­ter his own in­ter­ests.

This trans­for­ma­tion, al­ready be­gun, sug­gest­ed the fol­low­ing an­swer of a clever wom­an when asked why, since 1830, she stayed in Paris dur­ing the sum­mer. “Be­cause,” she said, “I do not care to vis­it chateaux which are now turned in­to farms.” What is to be the fu­ture of this ques­tion, get­ting dai­ly more and more im­per­ative,--that of man to man, the poor man and the rich man? This book is writ­ten to throw some light up­on that ter­ri­ble so­cial ques­tion.

It is easy to un­der­stand the per­plex­ities which as­sailed the gen­er­al af­ter he had dis­missed Gaubertin. While say­ing to him­self, vague­ly, like oth­er per­sons free to do or not to do a thing, “I'll dis­miss that scamp”; he had over­looked the risk and for­got­ten the ex­plo­sion of his boil­ing anger,--the anger of a cho­ler­ic fire-​eater at the mo­ment when a fla­grant im­po­si­tion forced him to raise the lids of his wil­ful­ly blind eyes.

Mont­cor­net, a land-​own­er for the first time and a denizen of Paris, had not pro­vid­ed him­self with a stew­ard be­fore com­ing to Les Aigues; but af­ter study­ing the neigh­bor­hood care­ful­ly he saw it was in­dis­pens­able to a man like him­self to have an in­ter­me­di­ary to man­age so many per­sons of low de­gree.

Gaubertin, who dis­cov­ered dur­ing the ex­cite­ment of the scene (which last­ed more than two hours) the dif­fi­cul­ties in which the gen­er­al would soon be in­volved, jumped on his pony af­ter leav­ing the room where the quar­rel took place, and gal­loped to Soulanges to con­sult the Soudrys. At his first words, “The gen­er­al and I have part­ed; whom can we put in my place with­out his sus­pect­ing it?” the Soudrys un­der­stood their friend's wish­es. Do not for­get that Soudry, for the last sev­en­teen years chief of po­lice of the can­ton, was dou­bly shrewd through his wife, an adept in the par­tic­ular wil­iness of a wait­ing-​maid of an Opera di­vin­ity.

“We may go far,” said Madame Soudry, “be­fore we find any one to suit the place as well as our poor Sibilet.”

“Made to or­der!” ex­claimed Gaubertin, still scar­let with mor­ti­fi­ca­tion. “Lupin,” he added, turn­ing to the no­tary, who was present, “go to Ville-​aux-​Fayes and whis­per it to Marechal, in case that big fire-​eater asks his ad­vice.”

Marechal was the lawyer whom his for­mer pa­tron, when buy­ing Les Aigues for the gen­er­al, had rec­om­mend­ed to Mon­sieur de Mont­cor­net as le­gal ad­vis­er.

Sibilet, el­dest son of the clerk of the court at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, a no­tary's clerk, with­out a pen­ny of his own, and twen­ty-​five years old, had fall­en in love with the daugh­ter of the chief-​mag­is­trate of Soulanges. The lat­ter, named Sar­cus, had a salary of fif­teen hun­dred francs, and was mar­ried to a wom­an with­out for­tune, the el­dest sis­ter of Mon­sieur Ver­mut, the apothe­cary of Soulanges. Though an on­ly daugh­ter, Made­moi­selle Sar­cus, whose beau­ty was her on­ly dowry, could scarce­ly have lived on the salary paid to a no­tary's clerk in the provinces. Young Sibilet, a rel­ative of Gaubertin, by a con­nec­tion rather dif­fi­cult to trace through fam­ily ram­ifi­ca­tions which make mem­bers of the mid­dle class­es in all the small­er towns cousins to each oth­er, owed a mod­est po­si­tion in a gov­ern­ment of­fice to the as­sis­tance of his fa­ther and Gaubertin. The un­lucky fel­low had the ter­ri­ble hap­pi­ness of be­ing the fa­ther of two chil­dren in three years. His own fa­ther, blessed with five, was un­able to as­sist him. His wife's fa­ther owned noth­ing be­side his house at Soulanges and an in­come of two thou­sand francs. Madame Sibilet the younger spent most of her time at her fa­ther's home with her two chil­dren, where Adolphe Sibilet, whose of­fi­cial du­ty obliged him to trav­el through the de­part­ment, came to see her from time to time.

Gaubertin's ex­cla­ma­tion, though easy to un­der­stand from this sum­ma­ry of young Sibilet's life, needs a few more ex­plana­to­ry de­tails.

Adolphe Sibilet, supreme­ly un­lucky, as we have shown by the fore­go­ing sketch of him, was one of those men who can­not reach the heart of a wom­an ex­cept by way of the al­tar and the may­or's of­fice. En­dowed with the sup­ple­ness of a steel-​spring, he yield­ed to pres­sure, cer­tain to re­vert to his first thought. This treach­er­ous habit is prompt­ed by cow­ardice; but the busi­ness train­ing which Sibilet un­der­went in the of­fice of a provin­cial no­tary had taught him the art of con­ceal­ing this de­fect un­der a gruff man­ner which sim­ulat­ed a strength he did not pos­sess. Many false na­tures mask their hol­low­ness in this way; be rough with them in re­turn and the ef­fect pro­duced is that of a bal­loon col­lapsed by a prick. Such was Sibilet. But as most men are not ob­servers, and as among ob­servers three fourths ob­serve on­ly af­ter a thing has tak­en place, Adolphe Sibilet's grum­bling man­ner was con­sid­ered the re­sult of an hon­est frank­ness, of a ca­pac­ity much praised by his mas­ter, and of a stub­born up­right­ness which no temp­ta­tion could shake. Some men are as much ben­efit­ed by their de­fects as oth­ers by their good qual­ities.

Ade­line Sar­cus, a pret­ty young wom­an, brought up by a moth­er (who died three years be­fore her mar­riage) as well as a moth­er can ed­ucate an on­ly daugh­ter in a re­mote coun­try town, was in love with the hand­some son of Lupin, the Soulanges no­tary. At the first signs of this ro­mance, old Lupin, who in­tend­ed to mar­ry his son to Made­moi­selle Elise Gaubertin, lost no time in send­ing young Amau­ry Lupin to Paris, to the care of his friend and cor­re­spon­dent Crot­tat, the no­tary, where, un­der pre­text of draw­ing deeds and con­tracts, Amau­ry com­mit­ted a va­ri­ety of fool­ish acts, and made debts, be­ing led there­to by a cer­tain Georges Marest, a clerk in the same of­fice, but a rich young man, who re­vealed to him the mys­ter­ies of Parisian life. By the time Lupin the el­der went to Paris to bring back his son, Ade­line Sar­cus had be­come Madame Sibilet. In fact, when the ador­ing Adolphe of­fered him­self, her fa­ther, the old mag­is­trate, prompt­ed by young Lupin's fa­ther, has­tened the mar­riage, to which Ade­line yield­ed in sheer de­spair.

The sit­ua­tion of clerk in a gov­ern­ment reg­is­tra­tion of­fice is not a ca­reer. It is, like oth­er such places which ad­mit of no rise, one of the many holes of the gov­ern­ment sieve. Those who start in life in these holes (the to­po­graph­ical, the pro­fes­so­ri­al, the high­way-​and-​canal de­part­ments) are apt to dis­cov­er, in­vari­ably too late, that clev­er­er men then they, seat­ed be­side them, are fed, as the Op­po­si­tion writ­ers say, on the sweat of the peo­ple, ev­ery time the sieve dips down in­to the tax­ation-​pot by means of a ma­chine called the bud­get. Adolphe, work­ing ear­ly and late and earn­ing lit­tle, soon found out the bar­ren depths of his hole; and his thoughts bus­ied them­selves, as he trot­ted from town­ship to town­ship, spend­ing his salary in shoe-​leather and costs of trav­el­ling, with how to find a per­ma­nent and more prof­itable place.

No one can imag­ine, un­less he hap­pens to squint and to have two le­git­imate chil­dren, what am­bi­tions three years of mis­ery and love had de­vel­oped in this young man, who squint­ed both in mind and vi­sion, and whose hap­pi­ness halt­ed, as it were, on one leg. The chief cause of se­cret evil deeds and hid­den mean­ness is, per­haps, an in­com­plet­ed hap­pi­ness. Man can bet­ter bear a state of hope­less mis­ery than those ter­ri­ble al­ter­na­tions of love and sun­shine with con­tin­ual rain. If the body con­tracts dis­ease, the mind con­tracts the lep­rosy of en­vy. In pet­ty minds that lep­rosy be­comes a base and bru­tal cu­pid­ity, both in­so­lent and shrink­ing; in cul­ti­vat­ed minds it fos­ters an­ti-​so­cial doc­trines, which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above his su­pe­ri­ors. May we not dig­ni­fy with the ti­tle of proverb the preg­nant say­ing, “Tell me what thou hast, and I will tell thee of what thou art think­ing”?

Though Adolphe loved his wife, his hourly thought was: “I have made a mis­take; I have three balls and chains, but I have on­ly two legs. I ought to have made my for­tune be­fore I mar­ried. I could have found an Ade­line any day; but Ade­line stands in the way of my get­ting a for­tune now.”

Adolphe had been to see his re­la­tion Gaubertin three times in three years. A few words ex­changed be­tween them let Gaubertin see the muck of a soul ready to fer­ment un­der the hot temp­ta­tions of le­gal rob­bery. He war­ily sound­ed a na­ture that could be warped to the ex­igen­cies of any plan, pro­vid­ed it was prof­itable. At each of the three vis­its Sibilet grum­bled at his fate.

“Em­ploy me, cousin,” he said; “take me as a clerk and make me your suc­ces­sor. You shall see how I work. I am ca­pa­ble of over­throw­ing moun­tains to give my Ade­line, I won't say lux­ury, but a mod­est com­pe­tence. You made Mon­sieur Lecler­cq's for­tune; why won't you put me in a bank in Paris?”

“Some day, lat­er on, I'll find you a place,” Gaubertin would say; “mean­time make friends and ac­quain­tance; such things help.”

Un­der these cir­cum­stances the let­ter which Madame Soudry hasti­ly dis­patched brought Sibilet to Soulanges through a re­gion of cas­tles in the air. His fa­ther-​in-​law, Sar­cus, whom the Soudrys ad­vised to take steps in the in­ter­est of his daugh­ter, had gone in the morn­ing to see the gen­er­al and to pro­pose Adolphe for the va­cant post. By ad­vice of Madame Soudry, who was the or­acle of the lit­tle town, the wor­thy man had tak­en his daugh­ter with him; and the sight of her had had a fa­vor­able ef­fect up­on the Comte de Mont­cor­net.

“I shall not de­cide,” he an­swered, “with­out thor­ough­ly in­form­ing my­self about all ap­pli­cants; but I will not look else­where un­til I have ex­am­ined whether or not your son-​in-​law pos­sess­es the re­quire­ments for the place.” Then, turn­ing to Madame Sibilet he added, “The sat­is­fac­tion of set­tling so charm­ing a per­son at Les Aigues--”

“The moth­er of two chil­dren, gen­er­al,” said Ade­line, adroit­ly, to evade the gal­lantry of the old cuirassier.

All the gen­er­al's in­quiries were clev­er­ly an­tic­ipat­ed by the Soudrys, Gaubertin, and Lupin, who qui­et­ly ob­tained for their can­di­date the in­flu­ence of the lead­ing lawyers in the cap­ital of the de­part­ment, where a roy­al court held ses­sions,--such as Coun­sel­lor Gen­drin, a dis­tant rel­ative of the judge at Ville-​aux-​Fayes; Baron Bourlac, at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al; and an­oth­er coun­sel­lor named Sar­cus, a cousin thrice re­moved of the can­di­date. The ver­dict of ev­ery one to whom the gen­er­al ap­plies was fa­vor­able to the poor clerk,--“so in­ter­est­ing,” as they called him. His mar­riage had made Sibilet as ir­re­proach­able as a nov­el of Miss Edge­worth's, and pre­sent­ed him, more­over, in the light of a dis­in­ter­est­ed man.

The time which the dis­missed stew­ard re­mained at Les Aigues un­til his suc­ces­sor could be ap­point­ed was em­ployed in cre­at­ing trou­bles and an­noy­ances for his late mas­ter; one of the lit­tle scenes which he thus played off will give an idea of sev­er­al oth­ers.

The morn­ing of his fi­nal de­par­ture he con­trived to meet, as it were ac­ci­den­tal­ly, Courte­cuisse, the on­ly keep­er then em­ployed at Les Aigues, the great ex­tent of which re­al­ly need­ed at least three.

“Well, Mon­sieur Gaubertin,” said Courte­cuisse, “so you have had trou­ble with the count?”

“Who told you that?” an­swered Gaubertin. “Well, yes; the gen­er­al ex­pect­ed to or­der us about as he did his cav­al­ry; he didn't know Bur­gun­di­ans. The count is not sat­is­fied with my ser­vices, and as I am not sat­is­fied with his ways, we have dis­missed each oth­er, al­most with fisticuffs, for he raged like a whirl­wind. Take care of your­self, Courte­cuisse! Ah! my dear fel­low, I ex­pect­ed to give you a bet­ter mas­ter.”

“I know that,” said the keep­er, “and I'd have served you well. Hang it, when friends have known each oth­er for twen­ty years, you know! You put me here in the days of the poor dear saint­ed Madame. Ah, what a good wom­an she was! none like her now! The place has lost a moth­er.”

“Look here, Courte­cuisse, if you are will­ing, you might help us to a fine stroke.”

“Then you are go­ing to stay here? I heard you were off to Paris.”

“No; I shall wait to see how things turn out; mean­time I shall do busi­ness at Ville-​aux-​Fayes. The gen­er­al doesn't know what he is deal­ing with in these parts; he'll make him­self hat­ed, don't you see? I shall wait for what turns up. Do your work here gen­tly; he'll tell you to man­age the peo­ple with a high hand, for he be­gins to see where his crops and his woods are run­ning to; but you'll not be such a fool as to let the coun­try-​folk maul you, and per­haps worse, for the sake of his tim­ber.”

“But he would send me away, dear Mon­sieur Gaubertin, he would get rid of me! and you know how hap­py I am liv­ing there at the gate of the Avonne.”

“The gen­er­al will soon get sick of the whole place,” replied Gaubertin; “you wouldn't be long out even if he did hap­pen to send you away. Be­sides, you know those woods,” he added, wav­ing his hand at the land­scape; “I am stronger there than the mas­ters.”

This con­ver­sa­tion took place in an open field.

“Those 'Arminac' Parisian fel­lows ought to stay in their own mud,” said the keep­er.

Ev­er since the quar­rels of the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry the word 'Arminac' (Ar­mag­nacs, Parisians, en­emies of the Dukes of Bur­gundy) has con­tin­ued to be an in­sult­ing term along the bor­ders of Up­per Bur­gundy, where it is dif­fer­ent­ly cor­rupt­ed ac­cord­ing to lo­cal­ity.

“He'll go back to it when beat­en,” said Gaubertin, “and we'll plough up the park; for it is rob­bing the peo­ple to al­low a man to keep nine hun­dred acres of the best land in the val­ley for his own plea­sure.”

“Four hun­dred fam­ilies could get their liv­ing from it,” said Courte­cuisse.

“If you want two acres for your­self you must help us to drive that cur out,” re­marked Gaubertin.

At the very mo­ment that Gaubertin was ful­mi­nat­ing this sen­tence of ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the wor­thy Sar­cus was pre­sent­ing his son-​in-​law Sibilet to the Comte de Mont­cor­net. They had come with Ade­line and the chil­dren in a wick­er car­ryall, lent by Sar­cus's clerk, a Mon­sieur Gour­don, broth­er of the Soulanges doc­tor, who was rich­er than the mag­is­trate him­self. The gen­er­al, pleased with the can­dor and dig­ni­ty of the jus­tice of the peace, and with the grace­ful bear­ing of Ade­line (both giv­ing pledges in good faith, for they were to­tal­ly ig­no­rant of the plans of Gaubertin), at once grant­ed all re­quests and gave such ad­van­tages to the fam­ily of the new land-​stew­ard as to make the po­si­tion equal to that of a sub-​pre­fect of the first class.

A lodge, built by Bouret as an ob­ject in the land­scape and al­so as a home for the stew­ard, an el­egant lit­tle build­ing, the ar­chi­tec­ture of which was suf­fi­cient­ly shown in the de­scrip­tion of the gate of Blangy, was promised to the Sibilets for their res­idence. The gen­er­al al­so con­ced­ed the horse which Made­moi­selle La­guerre had pro­vid­ed for Gaubertin, in con­sid­er­ation of the size of the es­tate and the dis­tance he had to go to the mar­kets where the busi­ness of the prop­er­ty was trans­act­ed. He al­lowed two hun­dred bushels of wheat, three hogsheads of wine, wood in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty, oats and bar­ley in abun­dance, and three per cent on all re­ceipts of in­come. Where the lat­ter in Made­moi­selle La­guerre's time had amount­ed to forty thou­sand francs, the gen­er­al now, in 1818, in view of the pur­chas­es of land which Gaubertin had made for her, ex­pect­ed to re­ceive at least six­ty thou­sand. The new land-​stew­ard might there­fore re­ceive be­fore long some two thou­sand francs in mon­ey. Lodged, fed, warmed, re­lieved of tax­es, the costs of a horse and a poul­try-​yard de­frayed for him, and al­lowed to plant a kitchen-​gar­den, with no ques­tions asked as to the day's work of the gar­den­er, cer­tain­ly such ad­van­tages rep­re­sent­ed much more than an­oth­er two thou­sand francs; for a man who was earn­ing a mis­er­able salary of twelve hun­dred francs in a gov­ern­ment of­fice to step in­to the stew­ard­ship of Les Aigues was a change from pover­ty to op­ulence.

“Be faith­ful to my in­ter­ests,” said the gen­er­al, “and I shall have more to say to you. Doubt­less I could get the col­lec­tion of the rents of Conch­es, Blangy, and Cerneux tak­en away from the col­lec­tion of those of Soulanges and giv­en to you. In short, when you bring me in a clear six­ty thou­sand a year from Les Aigues you shall be still fur­ther re­ward­ed.”

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the wor­thy jus­tice and his daugh­ter, in the flush of their joy, told Madame Soudry the promise the gen­er­al had made about these col­lec­tions, with­out re­flect­ing that the present col­lec­tor of Soulanges, a man named Guer­bet, broth­er of the post­mas­ter of Conch­es, was close­ly al­lied, as we shall see lat­er, with Gaubertin and the Gen­drins.

“It won't be so easy to do it, my dear,” said Madame Soudry; “but don't pre­vent the gen­er­al from mak­ing the at­tempt; it is won­der­ful how eas­ily dif­fi­cult things are done in Paris. I have seen the Cheva­lier Gluck at dear Madame's feet to get her to sing his mu­sic, and she did, --she who so adored Pic­ci­ni, one of the finest men of his day; nev­er did _he_ come in­to Madame's room with­out catch­ing me round the waist and call­ing me a dear rogue.”

“Ha!” cried Soudry, when his wife re­port­ed this news, “does he think he is go­ing to lead the no­tary by the nose, and up­set ev­ery­thing to please him­self and make the whole val­ley march in line, as he did his cuirassiers? These mil­itary fel­lows have a habit of com­mand!--but let's have pa­tience; Mon­sieur de Soulanges and Mon­sieur de Ron­querolles will be on our side. Poor Guer­bet! he lit­tle sus­pects who is try­ing to pluck the best ros­es out of his gar­land!”

Pere Guer­bet, the col­lec­tor of Soulanges, was the wit, that is to say, the jovial com­pan­ion of the lit­tle town, and a hero in Madame Soudry's sa­lon. Soudry's speech gives a fair idea of the opin­ion which now grew up against the mas­ter of Les Aigues from Conch­es to Ville-​aux-​Fayes, and wher­ev­er else the pub­lic mind could be reached and poi­soned by Gaubertin.

The in­stal­la­tion of Sibilet took place in the au­tumn of 1817. The year 1818 went by with­out the gen­er­al be­ing able to set foot at Les Aigues, for his ap­proach­ing mar­riage with Made­moi­selle de Troisville, which was cel­ebrat­ed in Jan­uary, 1819, kept him the greater part of the sum­mer near Alen­con, in the coun­try-​house of his prospec­tive fa­ther-​in-​law. Gen­er­al Mont­cor­net pos­sessed, be­sides Les Aigues and a mag­nif­icent house in Paris, some six­ty thou­sand francs a year in the Funds and the salary of a re­tired lieu­tenant-​gen­er­al. Though Napoleon had made him a count of the Em­pire and giv­en him the fol­low­ing arms, a field quar­ter­ly, the first, azure, bor­dure or, three pyra­mids ar­gent; the sec­ond, vert, three hunt­ing horns ar­gent; the third, gules, a can­non or on a gun-​car­riage sable, and, in chief, a cres­cent or; the fourth, or, a crown vert, with the mot­to (em­inent­ly of the mid­dle ages!), “Sound the charge,”--Mont­cor­net knew very well that he was the son of a cab­inet-​mak­er in the faubourg Saint-​An­toine, though he was quite ready to for­get it. He was eat­en up with the de­sire to be a peer of France, and dreamed of his grand cor­don of the Le­gion of hon­or, his Saint-​Louis cross, and his in­come of one hun­dred and forty thou­sand francs. Bit­ten by the de­mon of aris­toc­ra­cy, the sight of the blue rib­bon put him be­side him­self. The gal­lant cuirassier of Essling would have licked up the mud on the Pont-​Roy­al to be in­vit­ed to the house of a Navar­reins, a Lenon­court, a Grandlieu, a Maufrigneuse, a d'Es­pard, a Van­de­nesse, a Verneuil, a Her­ou­ville, or a Chaulieu.

From 1818, when the im­pos­si­bil­ity of a change in fa­vor of the Bona­parte fam­ily was made clear to him, Mont­cor­net had him­self trum­pet­ed in the faubourg Saint-​Ger­main by the wives of some of his friends, who of­fered his hand and heart, his man­sion and his for­tune in re­turn for an al­liance with some great fam­ily.

Af­ter sev­er­al at­tempts, the Duchesse de Carigliano found a match for the gen­er­al in one of the three branch­es of the Troisville fam­ily, --that of the vis­count in the ser­vice of Rus­sia ev­er since 1789, who had re­turned to France in 1815. The vis­count, poor as a younger son, had mar­ried a Princess Scher­bellof, worth about a mil­lion, but the ar­rival of two sons and three daugh­ters kept him poor. His fam­ily, an­cient and for­mer­ly pow­er­ful, now con­sist­ed of the Mar­quis de Troisville, peer of France, head of the house and scutcheon, and two deputies, with nu­mer­ous off­spring, who were busy, for their part, with the bud­get and the min­istries and the court, like fish­es round bits of bread. There­fore, when Mont­cor­net was pre­sent­ed by Madame de Carigliano,--the Napoleon­ic duchess, who was now a most de­vot­ed ad­her­ent of the Bour­bons, he was fa­vor­ably re­ceived. The gen­er­al asked, in re­turn for his for­tune and ten­der in­dul­gence to his wife, to be ap­point­ed to the Roy­al Guard, with the rank of mar­quis and peer of France; but the branch­es of the Troisville fam­ily would do no more than promise him their sup­port.

“You know what that means,” said the duchess to her old friend, who com­plained of the vague­ness of the promise. “They can­not oblige the king to do as they wish; they can on­ly in­flu­ence him.”

Mont­cor­net made Vir­ginie de Troisville his heir in the mar­riage set­tle­ments. Com­plete­ly un­der the con­trol of his wife, as Blon­det's let­ter has al­ready shown, he was still with­out chil­dren, but Louis XVI­II. had re­ceived him, and giv­en him the cor­don of Saint-​Louis, al­low­ing him to quar­ter his ridicu­lous arms with those of the Troisvilles, and promis­ing him the ti­tle of mar­quis as soon as he had de­served the peer­age by his ser­vices.

A few days af­ter the au­di­ence at which this promise had been giv­en, the Duc de Bar­ry was as­sas­si­nat­ed; the Marsan clique car­ried the day; the Vil­lele min­istry came in­to pow­er, and all the wires laid by the Troisvilles were snapped; it be­came nec­es­sary to find new ways of fas­ten­ing them up­on the min­istry.

“We must bide our time,” said the Troisvilles to Mont­cor­net, who was al­ways over­whelmed with po­lite­ness in the faubourg Saint-​Ger­main.

This will ex­plain how it was that the gen­er­al did not re­turn to Les Aigues un­til May, 1820.

The in­ef­fa­ble hap­pi­ness of the son of a shop-​keep­er of the faubourg Saint-​An­toine in pos­sess­ing a young, el­egant, in­tel­li­gent, and gen­tle wife, a Troisville, who had giv­en him an en­trance in­to all the sa­lons of the faubourg Saint-​Ger­main, and the de­light of mak­ing her en­joy the plea­sures of Paris, had kept him from Les Aigues and made him for­get about Gaubertin, even to his very name. In 1820 he took the count­ess to Bur­gundy to show her the es­tate, and he ac­cept­ed Sibilet's ac­counts and leas­es with­out look­ing close­ly in­to them; hap­pi­ness nev­er cav­ils. The count­ess, well pleased to find the stew­ard's wife a charm­ing young wom­an, made presents to her and to the chil­dren, with whom she oc­ca­sion­al­ly amused her­self. She or­dered a few changes at Les Aigues, hav­ing sent to Paris for an ar­chi­tect; propos­ing, to the gen­er­al's great de­light, to spend six months of ev­ery year on this mag­nif­icent es­tate. Mont­cor­net's sav­ings were soon spent on the ar­chi­tec­tural work and the exquisite new fur­ni­ture sent from Paris. Les Aigues thus re­ceived the last touch which made it a choice ex­am­ple of all the di­verse el­egan­cies of four cen­turies.

In 1821 the gen­er­al was al­most peremp­to­ri­ly urged by Sibilet to be at Les Aigues be­fore the month of May. Im­por­tant mat­ters had to be de­cid­ed. A lease of nine years, to the amount of thir­ty thou­sand francs, grant­ed by Gaubertin in 1812 to a wood-​mer­chant, fell in on the 15th of May of the cur­rent year. Sibilet, anx­ious to prove his rec­ti­tude, was un­will­ing to be re­spon­si­ble for the re­new­al of the lease. “You know, Mon­sieur le comte,” he wrote, “that I do not choose to prof­it by such mat­ters.” The wood-​mer­chant claimed an in­dem­ni­ty, ex­tort­ed from Madame La­guerre, through her ha­tred of lit­iga­tion, and shared by him with Gaubertin. This in­dem­ni­ty was based on the in­jury done to the woods by the peas­ants, who treat­ed the for­est of Les Aigues as if they had a right to cut the tim­ber. Messrs. Grav­elot Broth­ers, wood-​mer­chants in Paris, re­fused to pay their last quar­ter dues, of­fer­ing to prove by an ex­pert that the woods were re­duced one-​fifth in val­ue, through, they said, the in­ju­ri­ous prece­dent es­tab­lished by Madame La­guerre.

“I have al­ready,” wrote Sibilet, “sued these men in the courts at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, for they have tak­en le­gal res­idence there, on ac­count of this lease, with my old em­ploy­er, Maitre Cor­bi­net. I fear we shall lose the suit.”

“It is a ques­tion of in­come, my dear,” said the gen­er­al, show­ing the let­ter to his wife. “Will you go down to Les Aigues a lit­tle ear­li­er this year than last?”

“Go your­self, and I will fol­low you when the weath­er is warmer,” said the count­ess, not sor­ry to re­main in Paris alone.

The gen­er­al, who knew very well the canker that was eat­ing in­to his rev­enues, de­part­ed with­out his wife, re­solved to take vig­or­ous mea­sures. In so do­ing he reck­oned, as we shall see, with­out his Gaubertin.