Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT REV­OLU­TIONS OF A LIT­TLE VAL­LEY

“Well, Maitre Sibilet,” said the gen­er­al to his stew­ard, the morn­ing af­ter his ar­rival, giv­ing him a fa­mil­iar ti­tle which showed how much he ap­pre­ci­at­ed his ser­vices, “so we are, to use a min­is­te­ri­al phrase, at a cri­sis?”

“Yes, Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet, fol­low­ing the gen­er­al.

The for­tu­nate pos­ses­sor of Les Aigues was walk­ing up and down in front of the stew­ard's house, along a lit­tle ter­race where Madame Sibilet grew flow­ers, at the end of which was a wide stretch of mead­ow-​land wa­tered by the canal which Blon­det has de­scribed. From this point the chateau of Les Aigues was seen in the dis­tance, and in like man­ner the pro­file, as it were, of the stew­ard's lodge was seen from Les Aigues.

“But,” re­sumed the gen­er­al, “what's the dif­fi­cul­ty? If I do lose the suit against the Grav­elots, a mon­ey wound is not mor­tal, and I'll have the leas­ing of my for­est so well ad­ver­tised that there will be com­pe­ti­tion, and I shall sell the tim­ber at its true val­ue.”

“Busi­ness is not done in that way, Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet. “Sup­pose you get no lessees, what will you do?”

“Cut the tim­ber my­self and sell it--”

“You, a wood mer­chant?” said Sibilet. “Well, with­out look­ing at mat­ters here, how would it be in Paris? You would have to hire a wood-​yard, pay for a li­cense and the tax­es, al­so for the right of nav­iga­tion, and du­ties, and the costs of un­load­ing; be­sides the salary of a trust­wor­thy agent--”

“Yes, it is im­prac­ti­ca­ble,” said the gen­er­al hasti­ly, alarmed at the prospect. “But why can't I find per­sons to lease the right of cut­ting tim­ber as be­fore?”

“Mon­sieur le comte has en­emies.”

“Who are they?”

“Well, in the first place, Mon­sieur Gaubertin.”

“Do you mean the scoundrel whose place you took?”

“Not so loud, Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet, show­ing fear; “I beg of you, not so loud,--my cook might hear us.”

“Do you mean to tell me that I am not to speak on my own es­tate of a vil­lain who robbed me?” cried the gen­er­al.

“For the sake of your own peace and com­fort, come fur­ther away, Mon­sieur le comte. Mon­sieur Gaubertin is may­or of Ville-​aux-​Fayes.”

“Ha! I con­grat­ulate Ville-​aux-​Fayes. Thun­der! what a nobly gov­erned town!--”

“Do me the hon­or to lis­ten, Mon­sieur le comte, and to be­lieve that I am talk­ing of se­ri­ous mat­ters which may af­fect your fu­ture life in this place.”

“I am lis­ten­ing; let us sit down on this bench here.”

“Mon­sieur le comte, when you dis­missed Gaubertin, he had to find some em­ploy­ment, for he was not rich--”

“Not rich! when he stole twen­ty thou­sand francs a year from this es­tate?”

“Mon­sieur le comte, I don't pre­tend to ex­cuse him,” replied Sibilet. “I want to see Les Aigues pros­per­ous, if it were on­ly to prove Gaubertin's dis­hon­est; but we ought not to abuse him open­ly for he is one of the most dan­ger­ous scoundrels to be found in all Bur­gundy, and he is now in a po­si­tion to in­jure you.”

“In what way?” asked the gen­er­al, sober­ing down.

“Gaubertin has con­trol of near­ly one third of the sup­plies sent to Paris. As gen­er­al agent of the tim­ber busi­ness, he or­ders all the work of the forests,--the felling, chop­ping, float­ing, and send­ing to mar­ket. Be­ing in close re­la­tions with the work­men, he is the ar­biter of prices. It has tak­en him three years to cre­ate this po­si­tion, but he holds it now like a fortress. He is es­sen­tial to all deal­ers, nev­er fa­vor­ing one more than an­oth­er; he reg­ulates the whole busi­ness in their in­ter­ests, and their af­fairs are bet­ter and more cheap­ly looked af­ter by him than they were in the old time by sep­arate agents for each firm. For in­stance, he has so com­plete­ly put a stop to com­pe­ti­tion that he has ab­so­lute con­trol of the auc­tion sales; the crown and the State are both de­pen­dent on him. Their tim­ber is sold un­der the ham­mer and falls in­vari­ably to Gaubertin's deal­ers; in fact, no oth­ers at­tempt now to bid against them. Last year Mon­sieur Mar­iotte, of Aux­erre, urged by the com­mis­sion­er of do­mains, did at­tempt to com­pete with Gaubertin. At first, Gaubertin let him buy the stand­ing wood at the usu­al prices; but when it came to cut­ting it, the Avon­nais work­men asked such enor­mous prices that Mon­sieur Mar­iotte was obliged to bring la­bor­ers from Aux­erre, whom the Ville-​aux-​Fayes work­men at­tacked and drove away. The head of the coali­tion, and the ringlead­er of the brawl were brought be­fore the po­lice court, and the suits cost Mon­sieur Mar­iotte a great deal of mon­ey; for, be­sides the odi­um of hav­ing con­vict­ed and pun­ished poor men, he was forced to pay all costs, be­cause the los­ing side had not a far­thing to do it with. A suit against la­bor­ing men is sure to re­sult in ha­tred to those who live among them. Let me warn you of this; for if you fol­low the course you pro­pose, you will have to fight against the poor of this dis­trict at least. But that's not all. Count­ing it over, Mon­sieur Mar­iotte, a wor­thy man, found he was the los­er by his orig­inal lease. Forced to pay ready mon­ey, he was nev­er­the­less obliged to sell on time; Gaubertin de­liv­ered his tim­ber at long cred­its for the pur­pose of ru­in­ing his com­peti­tor. He un­der­sold him by at least five per cent, and the end of it is that poor Mar­iotte's cred­it is bad­ly shak­en. Gaubertin is now press­ing and ha­rass­ing the poor man so that he is driv­en, they tell me, to leave not on­ly Aux­erre, but even Bur­gundy it­self; and he is right. In this way land-​own­ers have long been sac­ri­ficed to deal­ers who now set the mar­ket-​prices, just as the fur­ni­ture-​deal­ers in Paris dic­tate val­ues to ap­prais­ers. But Gaubertin saves the own­ers so much trou­ble and wor­ry that they are re­al­ly gain­ers.”

“How so?” asked the gen­er­al.

“In the first place, be­cause the less com­pli­cat­ed a busi­ness is, the greater the prof­its to the own­ers,” an­swered Sibilet. “Be­sides which, their in­come is more se­cure; and in all mat­ters of ru­ral im­prove­ment and de­vel­op­ment that is the main thing, as you will find out. Then, too, Mon­sieur Gaubertin is the friend and pa­tron of work­ing-​men; he pays them well and keeps them al­ways at work; there­fore, though their fam­ilies live on the es­tates, the woods leased to deal­ers and be­long­ing to the land-​own­ers who trust the care of their prop­er­ty to Gaubertin (such as MM. de Soulanges and de Ron­querolles) are not dev­as­tat­ed. The dead wood is gath­ered up, but that is all--”

“That ras­cal Gaubertin has lost no time!” cried the gen­er­al.

“He is a bold man,” said Sibilet. “He re­al­ly is, as he calls him­self, the stew­ard of the best half of the de­part­ment, in­stead of be­ing mere­ly the stew­ard of Les Aigues. He makes a lit­tle out of ev­ery­body, and that lit­tle on ev­ery two mil­lions brings him in forty to fifty thou­sand francs a year. He says him­self, 'The fires on the Parisian hearths pay it all.' He is your en­emy, Mon­sieur le comte. My ad­vice to you is to ca­pit­ulate and be rec­on­ciled with him. He is in­ti­mate, as you know, with Soudry, the head of the gen­darmerie at Soulanges; with Mon­sieur Rigou, our may­or at Blangy; the pa­trols are un­der his in­flu­ence; there­fore you will find it im­pos­si­ble to re­press the pil­fer­ings which are eat­ing in­to your es­tate. Dur­ing the last two years your woods have been dev­as­tat­ed. Con­se­quent­ly the Grav­elots are more than like­ly to win their suit. They say, very tru­ly: 'Ac­cord­ing to the terms of the lease, the care of the woods is left to the own­er; he does not pro­tect them, and we are in­jured; the own­er is bound to pay us dam­ages.' That's fair enough; but it doesn't fol­low that they should win their case.”

“We must be ready to de­fend this suit at all costs,” said the gen­er­al, “and then we shall have no more of them.”

“You shall grat­ify Gaubertin,” re­marked Sibilet.

“How so?”

“Su­ing the Grav­elots is the same as a hand to hand fight with Gaubertin, who is their agent,” an­swered Sibilet. “He asks noth­ing bet­ter than such a suit. He de­clares, so I hear, that he will bring you if nec­es­sary be­fore the Court of Ap­peals.”

“The ras­cal! the--”

“If you at­tempt to work your own woods,” con­tin­ued Sibilet, turn­ing the knife in the wound, “you will find your­self at the mer­cy of work­men who will force you to pay rich men's prices in­stead of mar­ket-​prices. In short, they'll put you, as they did that poor Mar­iotte, in a po­si­tion where you must sell at a loss. If you then try to lease the woods you will get no ten­ants, for you can­not ex­pect that any one should take risks for him­self which Mar­iotte on­ly took for the crown and the State. Sup­pose a man talks of his loss­es to the gov­ern­ment! The gov­ern­ment is a gen­tle­man who is, like your obe­di­ent ser­vant when he was in its em­ploy, a wor­thy man with a frayed over­coat, who reads the news­pa­pers at a desk. Let his salary be twelve hun­dred or twelve thou­sand francs, his dis­po­si­tion is the same, it is not a whit soft­er. Talk of re­duc­tions and re­leas­es from the pub­lic trea­sury rep­re­sent­ed by the said gen­tle­man! He'll on­ly pooh-​pooh you as he mends his pen. No, the law is the wrong road for you, Mon­sieur le comte.”

“Then what's to be done?” cried the gen­er­al, his blood boil­ing as he tramped up and down be­fore the bench.

“Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet, abrupt­ly, “what I say to you is not for my own in­ter­ests, cer­tain­ly; but I ad­vise you to sell Les Aigues and leave the neigh­bor­hood.”

On hear­ing these words the gen­er­al sprang back as if a can­non-​ball had struck him; then he looked at Sibilet with a shrewd, diplo­mat­ic eye.

“A gen­er­al of the Im­pe­ri­al Guard run­ning away from the ras­cals, when Madame la comtesse likes Les Aigues!” he said. “No, I'll soon­er box Gaubertin's ears on the mar­ket-​place of Ville-​aux-​Fayes, and force him to fight me that I may shoot him like a dog.”

“Mon­sieur le comte, Gaubertin is not such a fool as to let him­self be brought in­to col­li­sion with you. Be­sides, you could not open­ly in­sult the may­or of so im­por­tant a place as Ville-​aux-​Fayes.”

“I'll have him turned out; the Troisvilles can do that for me; it is a ques­tion of in­come.”

“You won't suc­ceed, Mon­sieur le comte; Gaubertin's arms are long; you will get your­self in­to dif­fi­cul­ties from which you can­not es­cape.”

“Let us think of the present,” in­ter­rupt­ed the gen­er­al. “About that suit?”

“That, Mon­sieur le comte, I can man­age to win for you,” replied Sibilet, with a know­ing glance.

“Bra­vo, Sibilet!” said the gen­er­al, shak­ing his stew­ard's hand; “how are you go­ing to do it?”

“You will win it on a writ of er­ror,” replied Sibilet. “In my opin­ion the Grav­elots have the right of it. But it is not enough to be in the right, they must al­so be in or­der as to le­gal forms, and that they have ne­glect­ed. The Grav­elots ought to have sum­moned you to have the woods bet­ter watched. They can't ask for in­dem­ni­ty, at the close of a lease, for dam­ages which they know have been go­ing on for nine years; there is a clause in the lease as to this, on which we can file a bill of ex­cep­tions. You will lose the suit at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, pos­si­bly in the up­per court as well, but we will car­ry it to Paris and you will win at the Court of Ap­peals. The costs will be heavy and the ex­pens­es ru­inous. You will have to spend from twelve to fif­teen thou­sand francs mere­ly to win the suit,--but you will win it, if you care to. The suit will on­ly in­crease the en­mi­ty of the Grav­elots, for the ex­pens­es will be even heav­ier on them. You will be their bug­bear; you will be called liti­gious and ca­lum­ni­at­ed in ev­ery way; still, you can win--”

“Then, what's to be done?” re­peat­ed the gen­er­al, on whom Sibilet's ar­gu­ments were be­gin­ning to pro­duce the ef­fect of a vi­olent poi­son.

Just then the re­mem­brance of the blows he had giv­en Gaubertin with his cane crossed his mind, and made him wish he had be­stowed them on him­self. His flushed face was enough to show Sibilet the ir­ri­ta­tion that he felt.

“You ask me what can be done, Mon­sieur le comte? Why, on­ly one thing, com­pro­mise; but of course you can't ne­go­ti­ate that your­self. I must be thought to cheat you! We, poor dev­ils, whose on­ly for­tune and com­fort is in our good name, it is hard on us to even seem to do a ques­tion­able thing. We are al­ways judged by ap­pear­ances. Gaubertin him­self saved Made­moi­selle La­guerre's life dur­ing the Rev­olu­tion, but it seemed to oth­ers that he was rob­bing her. She re­ward­ed him in her will with a di­amond worth ten thou­sand francs, which Madame Gaubertin now wears on her head.”

The gen­er­al gave Sibilet an­oth­er glance still more diplo­mat­ic than the first; but the stew­ard seemed to take no no­tice of the chal­lenge it ex­pressed.

“If I were to ap­pear dis­hon­est, Mon­sieur Gaubertin would be so over­joyed that I could in­stant­ly ob­tain his help,” con­tin­ued Sibilet. “He would lis­ten with all his ears if I said to him: 'Sup­pose I were to ex­tort twen­ty thou­sand francs from Mon­sieur le comte for Messrs. Grav­elot, on con­di­tion that they shared them with me?' If your ad­ver­saries con­sent­ed to that, Mon­sieur le comte, I should re­turn you ten thou­sand francs; you lose on­ly the oth­er ten, you save ap­pear­ances, and the suit is quashed.”

“You are a fine fel­low, Sibilet,” said the gen­er­al, tak­ing his hand and shak­ing it. “If you can man­age the fu­ture as well as you do the present, I'll call you the prince of stew­ards.”

“As to the fu­ture,” said Sibilet, “you won't die of hunger if no tim­ber is cut for two or three years. Let us be­gin by putting prop­er keep­ers in the woods. Be­tween now and then things will flow as the wa­ter does in the Avonne. Gaubertin may die, or get rich enough to re­tire from busi­ness; at any rate, you will have suf­fi­cient time to find him a com­peti­tor. The cake is too rich not to be shared. Look for an­oth­er Gaubertin to op­pose the orig­inal.”

“Sibilet,” said the old sol­dier, de­light­ed with this va­ri­ety of so­lu­tions. “I'll give you three thou­sand francs if you'll set­tle the mat­ter as you pro­pose. For the rest, we'll think about it.”

“Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet, “first and fore­most have the for­est prop­er­ly watched. See for your­self the con­di­tion in which the peas­antry have put it dur­ing your two years' ab­sence. What could I do? I am stew­ard; I am not a bailiff. To guard Les Aigues prop­er­ly you need a mount­ed pa­trol and three keep­ers.”

“I cer­tain­ly shall have the es­tate prop­er­ly guard­ed. So it is to be war, is it? Very good, then we shall make war. That doesn't fright­en me,” said Mont­cor­net, rub­bing his hands.

“A war of francs,” said Sibilet; “and you may find that more dif­fi­cult than the oth­er kind; men can be killed but you can't kill self-​in­ter­est. You will fight your en­emy on the bat­tle-​field where all land­lords are com­pelled to fight,--I mean cash re­sults. It is not enough to pro­duce, you must sell; and in or­der to sell, you must be on good terms with ev­ery­body.”

“I shall have the coun­try peo­ple on my side.”

“By what means?”

“By do­ing good among them.”

“Do­ing good to the val­ley peas­ants! to the pet­ty shop­keep­ers of Soulanges!” ex­claimed Sibilet, squint­ing hor­ri­bly, by rea­son of the irony which flamed brighter in one eye than in the oth­er. “Mon­sieur le comte doesn't know what he un­der­takes. Our Lord Je­sus Christ would die again up­on the cross in this val­ley! If you wish an easy life, fol­low the ex­am­ple of the late Made­moi­selle La­guerre; let your­self be robbed, or else make peo­ple afraid of you. Wom­en, chil­dren, and the mass­es are all gov­erned by fear. That was the great se­cret of the Con­ven­tion, and of the Em­per­or, too.”

“Good heav­ens! is this the for­est of Bondy?” cried the gen­er­al.

“My dear,” said Sibilet's wife, ap­pear­ing at this mo­ment, “your break­fast is ready. Pray ex­cuse him, Mon­sieur le comte; he has eat­en noth­ing since morn­ing for he was obliged to go to Ron­querolles to de­liv­er some bar­ley.”

“Go, go, Sibilet,” said the gen­er­al.

The next morn­ing the count rose ear­ly, be­fore day­light, and went to the gate of the Avonne, in­tend­ing to talk with the one forester whom he em­ployed and find out what the man's sen­ti­ments re­al­ly were.

Some sev­en or eight hun­dred acres of the for­est of Les Aigues lie along the banks of the Avonne; and to pre­serve the ma­jes­tic beau­ty of the riv­er the large trees that bor­der it have been left un­touched for a dis­tance of three leagues on both sides in an al­most straight line. The mis­tress of Hen­ri IV., to whom Les Aigues for­mer­ly be­longed, was as fond of hunt­ing as the king him­self. In 1593 she or­dered a bridge to be built of a sin­gle arch with shelv­ing road­way by which to ride from the low­er side of the for­est to a much larg­er por­tion of it, pur­chased by her, which lay up­on the slopes of the hills. The gate of the Avonne was built as a place of meet­ing for the hunts­men; and we know the mag­nif­icence be­stowed by the ar­chi­tects of that day up­on all build­ings in­tend­ed for the de­light of the crown and the no­bil­ity. Six av­enues branched away from it, their place of meet­ing form­ing a half-​moon. In the cen­tre of the se­mi-​cir­cu­lar space stood an obelisk sur­mount­ed by a round shield, for­mer­ly gild­ed, bear­ing on one side the arms of Navarre and on the oth­er those of the Count­ess de Moret. An­oth­er half-​moon, on the side to­ward the riv­er, com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the first by a straight av­enue, at the op­po­site end of which the steep rise of the Vene­tian-​shaped bridge could be seen. Be­tween two el­egant iron rail­ings of the same char­ac­ter as that of the mag­nif­icent rail­ing which for­mer­ly sur­round­ed the gar­den of the Place Royale in Paris, now so un­for­tu­nate­ly de­stroyed, stood a brick pavil­ion, with stone cours­es hewn in facets like those of the chateau, with a very point­ed roof and win­dow-​cas­ings of stone cut in the same man­ner. This old style, which gave the build­ing a re­gal air, is suit­able on­ly to pris­ons when used in cities; but stand­ing in the heart of forests it de­rives from its sur­round­ings a splen­dor of its own. A group of trees formed a screen, be­hind which the ken­nels, an old fal­con­ry, a pheas­antry, and the quar­ters of the hunts­men were falling in­to ru­ins, af­ter be­ing in their day the won­der and ad­mi­ra­tion of Bur­gundy.

In 1595, the roy­al hunt­ing-​par­ties set forth from this mag­nif­icent pavil­ion, pre­ced­ed by those fine dogs so dear to Rubens and to Paul Veronese; the hunts­men mount­ed on high-​steep­ing steeds with stout and blue-​white satiny haunch­es, seen no longer ex­cept in Wou­ver­man's amaz­ing work, fol­lowed by foot­men in liv­ery; the scene en­livened by whip­pers-​in, wear­ing the high top-​boots with fac­ings and the yel­low leath­ern breech­es which have come down to the present day on the can­vas of Van der Meulen. The obelisk was erect­ed in com­mem­ora­tion of the vis­it of the Bear­nais, and his hunt with the beau­ti­ful Comtesse de Moret; the date is giv­en be­low the arms of Navarre. That jeal­ous wom­an, whose son was af­ter­wards le­git­ima­tized, would not al­low the arms of France to fig­ure on the obelisk, re­gard­ing them as a re­buke.

At the time of which we write, when the gen­er­al's eyes rest­ed on this splen­did ru­in, moss had gath­ered for cen­turies on the four faces of the roof; the hewn-​stone cours­es, man­gled by time, seemed to cry with yawn­ing mouths against the pro­fa­na­tion; dis­joint­ed lead­en set­tings let fall their oc­tag­onal panes, so that the win­dows seemed blind of an eye here and there. Yel­low wallflow­ers bloomed about the cop­ings; ivy slid its white rootlets in­to ev­ery crevice.

All things be­spoke a shame­ful want of care,--the seal set by mere life-​pos­ses­sors on the an­cient glo­ries that they pos­sess. Two win­dows on the first floor were stuffed with hay. Through an­oth­er, on the ground-​floor, was seen a room filled with tools and logs of wood; while a cow pushed her muz­zle through a fourth, prov­ing that Courte­cuisse, to avoid hav­ing to walk from the pavil­ion to the pheas­antry, had turned the large hall of the cen­tral build­ing in­to a sta­ble,--a hall with pan­elled ceil­ing, and in the cen­tre of each pan­el the arms of all the var­ious pos­ses­sors of Les Aigues!

Black and dirty pal­ings dis­graced the ap­proach to the pavil­ion, mak­ing square in­clo­sures with plank roofs for pigs, ducks, and hens, the ma­nure of which was tak­en away ev­ery six months. A few ragged gar­ments were hung to dry on the bram­bles which bold­ly grew unchecked here and there. As the gen­er­al came along the av­enue from the bridge, Madame Courte­cuisse was scour­ing a saucepan in which she had just made her cof­fee. The forester, sit­ting on a chair in the sun, con­sid­ered his wife as a sav­age con­sid­ers his. When he heard a horse's hoofs he turned round, saw the count, and seemed tak­en aback.

“Well, Courte­cuisse, my man,” said the gen­er­al, “I'm not sur­prised that the peas­ants cut my woods be­fore Messrs. Grav­elot can do so. So you con­sid­er your place a sinecure?”

“In­deed, Mon­sieur le comte, I have watched the woods so many nights that I'm ill from it. I've got a chill, and I suf­fer such pain this morn­ing that my wife has just made me a poul­tice in that saucepan.”

“My good fel­low,” said the count, “I don't know of any pain that a cof­fee poul­tice cures ex­cept that of hunger. Lis­ten to me, you ras­cal! I rode through my for­est yes­ter­day, and then through those of Mon­sieur de Soulanges and Mon­sieur de Ron­querolles. Theirs are care­ful­ly watched and pre­served, while mine is in a shame­ful state.”

“Ah, mon­sieur! but they are the old lords of the neigh­bor­hood; ev­ery­body re­spects their prop­er­ty. How can you ex­pect me to fight against six dis­tricts? I care for my life more than for your woods. A man who would un­der­take to watch your woods as they ought to be watched would get a ball in his head for wages in some dark cor­ner of the for­est--”

“Cow­ard!” cried the gen­er­al, try­ing to con­trol the anger the man's in­so­lent re­ply pro­voked in him. “Last night was as clear as day, yet it cost me three hun­dred francs in ac­tu­al rob­bery and over a thou­sand in fu­ture dam­ages. You will leave my ser­vice un­less you do bet­ter. All wrong-​do­ing de­serves some mer­cy; there­fore these are my con­di­tions: You may have the fines, and I will pay you three francs for ev­ery in­dict­ment you bring against these depreda­tors. If I don't get what I ex­pect, you know what you have to ex­pect, and no pen­sion ei­ther. Where­as, if you serve me faith­ful­ly and con­trive to stop these depre­da­tions, I'll give you an an­nu­ity of three hun­dred francs for life. You can think it over. Here are six ways,” con­tin­ued the count, point­ing to the branch­ing roads; “there's on­ly one for you to take, --as for me al­so, who am not afraid of balls; try and find the right one.”

Courte­cuisse, a small man about forty-​six years of age, with a full-​moon face, found his great­est hap­pi­ness in do­ing noth­ing. He ex­pect­ed to live and die in that pavil­ion, now con­sid­ered by him _his_ pavil­ion. His two cows were pas­tured in the for­est, from which he got his wood; and he spent his time in look­ing af­ter his gar­den in­stead of af­ter the delin­quents. Such ne­glect of du­ty suit­ed Gaubertin, and Courte­cuisse knew it did. The keep­er chased on­ly those depreda­tors who were the ob­jects of his per­son­al dis­like,--young wom­en who would not yield to his wish­es, or per­sons against whom he held a grudge; though for some time past he had re­al­ly felt no dis­likes, for ev­ery one yield­ed to him on ac­count of his easy-​go­ing ways with them.

Courte­cuisse had a place al­ways kept for him at the ta­ble of the Grand-​I-​Vert; the wood-​pick­ers feared him no longer; in­deed, his wife and he re­ceived many gifts in kind from them; his wood was brought in; his vine­yard dug; in short, all delin­quents at whom he blinked did him ser­vice.

Count­ing on Gaubertin for the fu­ture, and feel­ing sure of two acres when­ev­er Les Aigues should be brought to the ham­mer, he was rough­ly awak­ened by the curt speech of the gen­er­al, who, af­ter four qui­es­cent years, was now re­veal­ing his true char­ac­ter,--that of a bour­geois rich man who was de­ter­mined to be no longer de­ceived. Courte­cuisse took his cap, his game-​bag, and his gun, put on his gaiters and his belt (which bore the very re­cent arms of Mont­cor­net), and start­ed for Ville-​aux-​Fayes, with the care­less, in­dif­fer­ent air and man­ner un­der which coun­try-​peo­ple of­ten con­ceal very deep re­flec­tions, while he gazed at the woods and whis­tled to the dogs to fol­low him.

“What! you com­plain of the Shop­man when he pro­pos­es to make your for­tune?” said Gaubertin. “Doesn't the fool of­fer to give you three francs for ev­ery ar­rest you make, and the fines to boot? Have an un­der­stand­ing with your friends and you can bring as many in­dict­ments as you please,--hun­dreds if you like! With one thou­sand francs you can buy La Bachelerie from Rigou, be­come a prop­er­ty own­er, live in your own house, and work for your­self, or rather, make oth­ers work for you, and take your ease. On­ly--now lis­ten to me--you must man­age to ar­rest on­ly such as haven't a pen­ny in the world. You can't shear sheep un­less the wool is on their backs. Take the Shop­man's of­fer and leave him to col­lect the costs,--if he wants them; tastes dif­fer. Didn't old Mar­iotte pre­fer loss­es to prof­its, in spite of my ad­vice?”

Courte­cuisse, filled with ad­mi­ra­tion for these words of wis­dom, re­turned home burn­ing with the de­sire to be a land-​own­er and a bour­geois like the rest.

When the gen­er­al reached Les Aigues he re­lat­ed his ex­pe­di­tion to Sibilet.

“Mon­sieur le comte did very right,” said the stew­ard, rub­bing his hands; “but he must not stop short half-​way. The field-​keep­er of the dis­trict who al­lows the coun­try-​peo­ple to prey up­on the mead­ows and rob the har­vests ought to be changed. Mon­sieur le comte should have him­self cho­sen may­or, and ap­point one of his old sol­diers, who would have the courage to car­ry out his or­ders, in place of Vau­doy­er. A great land-​own­er should be mas­ter in his own dis­trict. Just see what dif­fi­cul­ties we have with the present may­or!”

The may­or of the dis­trict of Blangy, for­mer­ly a Bene­dic­tine, named Rigou, had mar­ried, in the first year of the Re­pub­lic, the ser­vant-​wom­an of the late priest of Blangy. In spite of the re­pug­nance which a mar­ried monk ex­cit­ed at the Pre­fec­ture, he had con­tin­ued to be may­or af­ter 1815, for the rea­son that there was no-​one else at Blangy who was ca­pa­ble of fill­ing the post. But in 1817, when the bish­op sent the Abbe Bros­sette to the parish of Blangy (which had then been va­cant over twen­ty-​five years), a vi­olent op­po­si­tion not un­nat­ural­ly broke out be­tween the old apos­tate and the young ec­cle­si­as­tic, whose char­ac­ter is al­ready known to us. The war which was then and there de­clared be­tween the may­or's of­fice and the par­son­age in­creased the pop­ular­ity of the mag­is­trate, who had hith­er­to been more or less de­spised. Rigou, whom the peas­ants had dis­liked for usu­ri­ous deal­ings, now sud­den­ly rep­re­sent­ed their po­lit­ical and fi­nan­cial in­ter­ests, sup­posed to be threat­ened by the Restora­tion, and more es­pe­cial­ly by the cler­gy.

A copy of the “Con­sti­tu­tion­nel,” that great or­gan of lib­er­al­ism, af­ter mak­ing the rounds of the Cafe de la Paix, came back to Rigou on the sev­enth day,--the sub­scrip­tion, stand­ing in the name of old Soc­quard the keep­er of the cof­fee-​house, be­ing shared by twen­ty per­sons. Rigou passed the pa­per on to Lan­glume the miller, who, in turn, gave it in shreds to any one who knew how to read. The “Paris items,” and the an­ti-​re­li­gion jokes of the lib­er­al sheet formed the pub­lic opin­ion of the val­ley des Aigues. Rigou, like the _ven­er­able_ Abbe Gre­goire, be­came a hero. For him, as for cer­tain Parisian bankers, pol­itics spread a man­tle of pop­ular­ity over his shame­ful dis­hon­esty.

At this par­tic­ular time the per­jured monk, like Fran­cois Keller the great or­ator, was looked up­on as a de­fend­er of the rights of the peo­ple,--he who, not so very long be­fore, dared not walk in the fields af­ter dark, lest he should stum­ble in­to pit­falls where he would seem to have been killed by ac­ci­dent! Per­se­cute a man po­lit­ical­ly and you not on­ly mag­ni­fy him, but you re­deem his past and make it in­no­cent. The lib­er­al par­ty was a great work­er of mir­acles in this re­spect. Its dan­ger­ous jour­nal, which had the wit to make it­self as com­mon­place, as ca­lum­ni­at­ing, as cred­ulous, and as sillily per­fid­ious as ev­ery au­di­ence made up the gen­er­al mass­es, did in all prob­abil­ity as much in­jury to pri­vate in­ter­ests as it did to those of the Church.

Rigou flat­tered him­self that he should find in a Bona­partist gen­er­al now laid on the shelf, in a son of the peo­ple raised from noth­ing by the Rev­olu­tion, a sound en­emy to the Bour­bons and the priests. But the gen­er­al, bear­ing in mind his pri­vate am­bi­tions, so ar­ranged mat­ters as to evade the vis­it of Mon­sieur and Madame Rigou when he first came to Les Aigues.

When you have be­come bet­ter ac­quaint­ed with the ter­ri­ble char­ac­ter of Rigou, the lynx of the val­ley, you will un­der­stand the full ex­tent of the sec­ond cap­ital blun­der which the gen­er­al's aris­to­crat­ic am­bi­tions led him to com­mit, and which the count­ess made all the greater by an of­fence which will be de­scribed in the fur­ther his­to­ry of Rigou.

If Mont­cor­net had court­ed the may­or's good-​will, if he had sought his friend­ship, per­haps the in­flu­ence of the rene­gade might have neu­tral­ized that of Gaubertin. Far from that, three suits were now pend­ing in the courts of Ville-​aux-​Fayes be­tween the gen­er­al and the ex-​monk. Un­til the present time the gen­er­al had been so ab­sorbed in his per­son­al in­ter­ests and in his mar­riage that he had nev­er re­mem­bered Rigou, but when Sibilet ad­vised him to get him­self made may­or in Rigou's place, he took post-​hors­es and went to see the pre­fect.

The pre­fect, Comte Mar­tial de la Roche-​Hugon, had been a friend of the gen­er­al since 1804; and it was a word from him said to Mont­cor­net in a con­ver­sa­tion in Paris, which brought about the pur­chase of Les Aigues. Comte Mar­tial, a pre­fect un­der Napoleon, re­mained a pre­fect un­der the Bour­bons, and court­ed the bish­op to re­tain his place. Now it hap­pened that Mon­seigneur had sev­er­al times re­quest­ed him to get rid of Rigou. Mar­tial, to whom the con­di­tion of the dis­trict was per­fect­ly well known, was de­light­ed with the gen­er­al's re­quest; so that in less than a month the Comte de Mont­cor­net was may­or of Blangy.

By one of those ac­ci­dents which come about nat­ural­ly, the gen­er­al met, while at the pre­fec­ture where his friend put him up, a non-​com­mis­sioned of­fi­cer of the ex-​Im­pe­ri­al guard, who had been cheat­ed out of his re­tir­ing pen­sion. The gen­er­al had al­ready, un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances, done a ser­vice to the brave cav­al­ry­man, whose name was Groi­son; the man, re­mem­ber­ing it, now told him his trou­bles, ad­mit­ting that he was pen­ni­less. The gen­er­al promised to get him his pen­sion, and pro­posed that he should take the place of field-​keep­er to the dis­trict of Blangy, as a way of pay­ing off his score of grat­itude by de­vo­tion to the new may­or's in­ter­ests. The ap­point­ments of mas­ter and man were made si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and the gen­er­al gave, as may be sup­posed, very firm in­struc­tions to his sub­or­di­nate.

Vau­doy­er, the dis­placed keep­er, a peas­ant on the Ron­querolles es­tate, was on­ly fit, like most field-​keep­ers, to stalk about, and gos­sip, and let him­self be pet­ted by the poor of the dis­trict, who asked noth­ing bet­ter than to cor­rupt at sub­al­tern au­thor­ity,--the ad­vanced guard, as it were, of the land-​own­ers. He knew Soudry, the brigadier at Soulanges, for brigadiers of gen­darmerie, per­form­ing func­tions that are se­mi-​ju­di­cial in draw­ing up crim­inal in­dict­ments, have much to do with the ru­ral keep­ers, who are, in fact, their nat­ural spies. Soudry, be­ing ap­pealed to, sent Vau­doy­er to Gaubertin, who re­ceived his old ac­quain­tance very cor­dial­ly, and in­vit­ed him to drink while lis­ten­ing to the recital of his trou­bles.

“My dear friend,” said the may­or of Ville-​aux-​Fayes, who could talk to ev­ery man in his own lan­guage, “what has hap­pened to you is like­ly to hap­pen to us all. The no­bles are back up­on us. The men to whom the Em­per­or gave ti­tles make com­mon cause with the old no­bil­ity. They all want to crush the peo­ple, re-​es­tab­lish their for­mer rights and take our prop­er­ty from us. But we are Bur­gun­di­ans; we must re­sist, and drive those Armi­nacs back to Paris. Re­turn to Blangy; you shall be agent for Mon­sieur Polis­sard, the wood-​mer­chant, who is con­trac­tor for the for­est of Ron­querolles. Don't be un­easy, my lad; I'll find you enough to do for the whole of the com­ing year. But re­mem­ber one thing; the wood is for our­selves! Not a sin­gle depre­da­tion, or the thing is at an end. Send all in­ter­lop­ers to Les Aigues. If there's brush or fagots to sell make peo­ple buy ours; don't let them buy of Les Aigues. You'll get back to your place as field-​keep­er be­fore long; this thing can't last. The gen­er­al will get sick of liv­ing among thieves. Did you know that that Shop­man called me a thief, me!--son of the stanch­est and most in­cor­rupt­ible of re­pub­li­cans; me!--the son in law of Mou­chon, that fa­mous rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple, who died with­out leav­ing me enough to bury him?”

The gen­er­al raised the salary of the new field-​keep­er to three hun­dred francs; and built a town-​hall, in which he gave him a res­idence. Then he mar­ried him to a daugh­ter of one of his ten­ant-​farm­ers, who had late­ly died, leav­ing her an or­phan with three acres of vine­yard. Groi­son at­tached him­self to the gen­er­al as a dog to his mas­ter. This le­git­imate fi­deli­ty was ad­mit­ted by the whole com­mu­ni­ty. The keep­er was feared and re­spect­ed, but like the cap­tain of a ves­sel whose ship's com­pa­ny hate him; the peas­antry shunned him as they would a lep­er. Met ei­ther in si­lence or with sar­casms veiled un­der a show of good-​hu­mor, the new keep­er was a sen­tinel watched by oth­er sen­tinels. He could do noth­ing against such num­bers. The delin­quents took de­light in plot­ting depre­da­tions which it was im­pos­si­ble for him to prove, and the old sol­dier grew fu­ri­ous at his help­less­ness. Groi­son found the ex­cite­ment of a war of fac­tions in his du­ties, and all the plea­sures of the chase,--a chase af­ter pet­ty delin­quents. Trained in re­al war to a loy­al­ty which con­sists in part of play­ing a fair game, this en­emy of traitors came at last to hate these peo­ple, so treach­er­ous in their con­spir­acies, and so clever in their thefts that they mor­ti­fied his self-​es­teem. He soon ob­served that the depre­da­tions were com­mit­ted on­ly at Les Aigues; all the oth­er es­tates were re­spect­ed. At first he de­spised a peas­antry un­grate­ful enough to pil­lage a gen­er­al of the Em­pire, an es­sen­tial­ly kind and gen­er­ous man; present­ly, how­ev­er, he added ha­tred to con­tempt. But mul­ti­ply him­self as he would, he could not be ev­ery­where, and the en­emy pil­laged ev­ery­where that he was not. Groi­son made the gen­er­al un­der­stand that it was nec­es­sary to or­ga­nize the de­fence on a war foot­ing, and proved to him the in­suf­fi­cien­cy of his own de­vot­ed ef­forts and the evil dis­po­si­tion of the in­hab­itants of the val­ley.

“There is some­thing be­hind it all, gen­er­al,” he said; “these peo­ple are so bold they fear noth­ing; they seem to re­ly on the fa­vor of the good God.”

“We shall see,” replied the count.

Fa­tal word! The verb “to see” has no fu­ture tense for politi­cians.

At the mo­ment, Mont­cor­net was con­sid­er­ing an­oth­er dif­fi­cul­ty, which seemed to him more press­ing. He need­ed an al­ter ego to do his work in the may­or's of­fice dur­ing the months he lived in Paris. Obliged to find some man who knew how to read and write for the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant may­or, he knew of none and could hear of none through­out the dis­trict but Lan­glume, the ten­ant of his own flour-​mill. The choice was dis­as­trous. Not on­ly were the in­ter­ests of may­or and miller di­amet­ri­cal­ly op­posed, but Lan­glume had long hatched swin­dling projects with Rigou, who lent him mon­ey to car­ry on his busi­ness, or to ac­quire prop­er­ty. The miller had bought the right to the hay of cer­tain fields for his hors­es, and Sibilet could not sell it ex­cept to him. The hay of all the fields in the dis­trict was sold at bet­ter prices than that of Les Aigues, though the yield of the lat­ter was the best.

Lan­glume, then, be­came the pro­vi­sion­al may­or; but in France the pro­vi­sion­al is eter­nal,--though French­men are sus­pect­ed of lov­ing change. Act­ing by Rigou's ad­vice, he played a part of great de­vo­tion to the gen­er­al; and he was still as­sis­tant-​may­or at the mo­ment when, by the om­nipo­tence of the his­to­ri­an, this dra­ma be­gins.

In the ab­sence of the may­or, Rigou, nec­es­sar­ily a mem­ber of the dis­trict coun­cil, reigned supreme, and brought for­ward res­olu­tions all in­ju­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ing the gen­er­al. At one time he caused mon­ey to be spent for pur­pos­es that were prof­itable to the peas­ants on­ly,--the greater part of the ex­pens­es falling up­on Les Aigues, which, by rea­son of its great ex­tent, paid two thirds of the tax­es; at oth­er times the coun­cil re­fused, un­der his in­flu­ence, cer­tain use­ful and nec­es­sary al­lowances, such as an in­crease in salary for the abbe, re­pairs or im­prove­ments to the par­son­age, or “wages” to the school-​mas­ter.

“If the peas­ants once know how to read and write, what will be­come of us?” said Lan­glume, naive­ly, to the gen­er­al, to ex­cuse this an­ti-​lib­er­al ac­tion tak­en against a broth­er of the Chris­tian Doc­trine whom the Abbe Bros­sette wished to es­tab­lish as a pub­lic school-​mas­ter in Blangy.

The gen­er­al, de­light­ed with his old Groi­son, re­turned to Paris and im­me­di­ate­ly looked about him for oth­er old sol­diers of the late im­pe­ri­al guard, with whom to or­ga­nize the de­fence of Les Aigues on a formidable foot­ing. By dint of search­ing out and ques­tion­ing his friends and many of­fi­cers on half-​pay, he un­earthed Michaud, a for­mer quar­ter­mas­ter at head­quar­ters of the cuirassiers of the guard; one of those men whom troop­ers call “hard-​to-​cook,” a nick­name de­rived from the mess kitchen where re­frac­to­ry beans are not un­com­mon. Michaud picked out from among his friends and ac­quain­tances, three oth­er men fit to be his helpers, and able to guard the es­tate with­out fear and with­out re­proach.

The first, named Stein­gel, a pure-​blood­ed Al­sa­cian, was a nat­ural son of the gen­er­al of that name, who fell in one of Bona­parte's first vic­to­ries with the army of Italy. Tall and strong, he be­longed to the class of sol­diers ac­cus­tomed, like the Rus­sians, to obey, pas­sive­ly and ab­so­lute­ly. Noth­ing hin­dered him in the per­for­mance of his du­ty; he would have col­lared an em­per­or or a pope if such were his or­ders. He ig­nored dan­ger. Per­fect­ly fear­less, he had nev­er re­ceived the small­est scratch dur­ing his six­teen years' cam­paign­ing. He slept in the open air or in his bed with sto­ical in­dif­fer­ence. At any in­creased la­bor or dis­com­fort, he mere­ly re­marked, “It seems to be the or­der of the day.”

The sec­ond man, Va­tel, son of the reg­iment, cor­po­ral of voltigeurs, gay as a lark, rather free and easy with the fair sex, brave to fool­har­di­ness, was ca­pa­ble of shoot­ing a com­rade with a laugh if or­dered to ex­ecute him. With no fu­ture be­fore him and not know­ing how to em­ploy him­self, the prospect of find­ing an amus­ing lit­tle war in the func­tions of keep­er, at­tract­ed him; and as the grand army and the Em­per­or had hith­er­to stood him in place of a re­li­gion, so now he swore to serve the brave Mont­cor­net against and through all and ev­ery­thing. His na­ture was of that es­sen­tial­ly wran­gling qual­ity to which a life with­out en­emies seems dull and ob­ject­less,--the na­ture, in short, of a lit­igant, or a po­lice­man. If it had not been for the pres­ence of the sher­iff's of­fi­cer, he would have seized Ton­sard and the bun­dle of wood at the Grand-​I-​Vert, snap­ping his fin­gers at the law on the in­vi­ola­bil­ity of a man's domi­cile.

The third man, Gail­lard, al­so an old sol­dier, risen to the rank of sub-​lieu­tenant, and cov­ered with wounds, be­longed to the class of me­chan­ical sol­diers. The fate of the Em­per­or nev­er left his mind and he be­came in­dif­fer­ent to ev­ery­thing else. With the care of a nat­ural daugh­ter on his hands, he ac­cept­ed the place that was now of­fered to him as a means of sub­sis­tence, tak­ing it as he would have tak­en ser­vice in a reg­iment.

When the gen­er­al reached Les Aigues, whith­er he had gone in ad­vance of his troop­ers, in­tend­ing to send away Courte­cuisse, he was amazed at dis­cov­er­ing the im­pu­dent au­dac­ity with which the keep­er had ful­filled his com­mands. There is a method of obey­ing which makes the obe­di­ence of the ser­vant a cut­ting sar­casm on the mas­ter's or­der. But all things in this world can be re­duced to ab­sur­di­ty, and Courte­cuisse in this in­stance went be­yond its lim­its.

One hun­dred and twen­ty-​six in­dict­ments against depreda­tors (most of whom were in col­lu­sion with Courte­cuisse) and sworn to be­fore the jus­tice court of Soulanges, had re­sult­ed in six­ty-​nine com­mit­ments for tri­al, in virtue of which Brunet, the sher­iff's of­fi­cer, de­light­ed at such a wind­fall of fees, had rig­or­ous­ly en­forced the war­rants in such a way as to bring about what is called, in le­gal lan­guage, a dec­la­ra­tion of in­sol­ven­cy; a con­di­tion of pau­perism where the law be­comes of course pow­er­less. By this dec­la­ra­tion the sher­iff proves that the de­fen­dant pos­sess­es no prop­er­ty of any kind, and is there­fore a pau­per. Where there is ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing, the cred­itor, like the king, los­es his right to sue. The pau­pers in this case, care­ful­ly se­lect­ed by Courte­cuisse, were scat­tered through five neigh­bor­ing dis­tricts, whith­er Brunet be­took him­self du­ly at­tend­ed by his satel­lites, Ver­michel and Four­chon, to serve the writs. Lat­er he trans­mit­ted the pa­pers to Sibilet with a bill of costs for five thou­sand francs, re­quest­ing him to ob­tain the fur­ther or­ders of Mon­sieur le comte de Mont­cor­net.

Just as Sibilet, armed with these pa­pers, was calm­ly ex­plain­ing to the count the re­sult of the rash or­ders he had giv­en to Courte­cuisse, and wit­ness­ing, as calm­ly, a burst of the most vi­olent anger a gen­er­al of the French cav­al­ry was ev­er known to in­dulge in, Courte­cuisse en­tered to pay his re­spects to his mas­ter and to bring his own ac­count of eleven hun­dred francs, the sum to which his promised com­mis­sion now amount­ed. The nat­ural man took the bit in his teeth and ran off with the gen­er­al, who to­tal­ly for­got his coro­net and his field rank; he was a troop­er once more, vom­it­ing curs­es of which he prob­ably was ashamed when he thought of them lat­er.

“Ha! eleven hun­dred francs!” he shout­ed, “eleven hun­dred slaps in your face! eleven hun­dred kicks!--Do you think I can't see straight through your lies? Out of my sight, or I'll strike you flat!”

At the mere look of the gen­er­al's pur­ple face and be­fore that war­rior could get out the last words, Courte­cuisse was off like a swal­low.

“Mon­sieur le comte,” said Sibilet, gen­tly, “you are wrong.”

“Wrong! I, wrong?”

“Yes, Mon­sieur le comte, take care, you will have trou­ble with that ras­cal; he will sue you.”

“What do I care for that? Tell the scoundrel to leave the place in­stant­ly! See that he takes noth­ing of mine, and pay him his wages.”

Four hours lat­er the whole coun­try-​side was gos­sip­ing about this scene. The gen­er­al, they said, had as­sault­ed the un­for­tu­nate Courte­cuisse, and re­fused to pay his wages and two thou­sand francs be­sides, which he owed him. Ex­traor­di­nary sto­ries went the rounds, and the mas­ter of Les Aigues was de­clared in­sane. The next day Brunet, who had served all the war­rants for the gen­er­al, now brought him on be­half of Courte­cuisse a sum­mon to ap­pear be­fore the po­lice court. The li­on was stung by gnats; but his mis­ery was on­ly just be­gin­ning.

The in­stal­la­tion of a keep­er is not done with­out a few for­mal­ities; he must, for in­stance, file an oath in the civ­il court. Some days there­fore elapsed be­fore the three keep­ers re­al­ly en­tered up­on their func­tions. Though the gen­er­al had writ­ten to Michaud to bring his wife with­out wait­ing un­til the lodge at the gate of the Avonne was ready for them, the fu­ture head-​keep­er, or rather bailiff, was de­tained in Paris by his mar­riage and his wife's fam­ily, and did not reach Les Aigues un­til a fort­night lat­er. Dur­ing those two weeks, and dur­ing the time still fur­ther re­quired for cer­tain for­mal­ities which were car­ried out with very ill grace by the au­thor­ities at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, the for­est of Les Aigues was shame­ful­ly dev­as­tat­ed by the peas­antry, who took ad­van­tage of the fact that there was prac­ti­cal­ly no watch over it.

The ap­pear­ance of three keep­ers hand­some­ly dressed in green cloth, the Em­per­or's col­or, with faces de­not­ing firm­ness, and each of them well-​made, ac­tive, and ca­pa­ble of spend­ing their nights in the woods, was a great event in the val­ley, from Conch­es to Ville-​aux-​Fayes.

Through­out the dis­trict Groi­son was the on­ly man who wel­comed these vet­er­ans. De­light­ed to be thus re­in­forced, he let fall a few threats against thieves, who be­fore long, he said, would be watched so close­ly that they could do no dam­age. Thus the usu­al procla­ma­tion of all great com­man­ders was not lack­ing to the present war; in this case it was said aloud and al­so whis­pered in se­cret.

Sibilet called the gen­er­al's at­ten­tion to the fact that the gen­darmerie of Soulanges, and es­pe­cial­ly its brigadier, Soudry, were thor­ough­ly and hyp­ocrit­ical­ly hos­tile to Les Aigues. He made him see the im­por­tance of sub­sti­tut­ing an­oth­er brigade, which might show a bet­ter spir­it.

“With a good brigadier and a com­pa­ny of gen­darmes de­vot­ed to your in­ter­ests, you could man­age the coun­try,” he said to him.

The gen­er­al went to the Pre­fec­ture and ob­tained from the gen­er­al in com­mand of the di­vi­sion the re­tire­ment of Soudry and the sub­sti­tu­tion of a man named Vial­let, an ex­cel­lent gen­darme at head­quar­ters, who was much praised by his gen­er­al and the pre­fect. The com­pa­ny of gen­darmes at Soulanges were dis­persed to oth­er places in the de­part­ment by the colonel of the gen­darmerie, an old friend of Mont­cor­net, and cho­sen men were put in their places with se­cret or­ders to keep watch over the es­tate of the Comte de Mont­cor­net, and pre­vent all fu­ture at­tempts to in­jure it; they were al­so par­tic­ular­ly en­joined not to al­low them­selves to be gained over by the in­hab­itants of Soulanges.

This last rev­olu­tion­ary mea­sure, car­ried out with such ra­pid­ity that there was no pos­si­bil­ity of coun­ter­min­ing it cre­at­ed much as­ton­ish­ment in Soulanges and in Ville-​aux-​Fayes. Soudry, who felt him­self dis­missed, com­plained bit­ter­ly, and Gaubertin man­aged to get him ap­point­ed may­or, which put the gen­darmerie un­der his or­ders. An out­cry was made about tyran­ny. Mont­cor­net be­came an ob­ject of gen­er­al ha­tred. Not on­ly were five or six lives rad­ical­ly changed by him, but many per­son­al van­ities were wound­ed. The peas­ants, tak­ing their cue from words dropped by the small trades­men of Ville-​aux-​Fayes and Soulanges, and by Rigou, Lan­glume, Guer­bet, and the post­mas­ter at Conch­es, thought they were on the eve of los­ing what they called their rights.

The gen­er­al stopped the suit brought by Courte­cuisse by pay­ing him all he de­mand­ed. The man then pur­chased, nom­inal­ly for two thou­sand francs, a lit­tle prop­er­ty sur­round­ed on all sides but one by the es­tate of Les Aigues,--a sort of cov­er in­to which the game es­caped. Rigou, the own­er, had nev­er been will­ing to part with La Bachelerie, as it was called, to the pos­ses­sors of the es­tate, but he now took ma­li­cious plea­sure in sell­ing it, at fifty per cent dis­count, to Courte­cuisse; which made the ex-​keep­er one of Rigou's nu­mer­ous hench­men, for all he ac­tu­al­ly paid for the prop­er­ty was one thou­sand francs.

The three keep­ers, with Michaud the bailiff, and Groi­son the field-​keep­er of Blangy, led hence­forth the life of guer­ril­las. Liv­ing night and day in the for­est, they soon ac­quired that deep knowl­edge of wood­land things which be­comes a sci­ence among foresters, sav­ing them much loss of time; they stud­ied the tracks of an­imals, the species of the trees, and their habits of growth, train­ing their ears to ev­ery sound and to ev­ery mur­mur of the woods. Still fur­ther, they ob­served faces, watched and un­der­stood the dif­fer­ent fam­ilies in the var­ious vil­lages of the dis­trict, and knew the in­di­vid­uals in each fam­ily, their habits, char­ac­ters, and means of liv­ing,--a far more dif­fi­cult mat­ter than most per­sons sup­pose. When the peas­ants who ob­tained their liv­ing from Les Aigues saw these well-​planned mea­sures of de­fence, they met them with dumb re­sis­tance or sneer­ing sub­mis­sion.

From the first, Michaud and Sibilet mu­tu­al­ly dis­liked each oth­er. The frank and loy­al sol­dier, with the sense of hon­or of a sub­al­tern of the young “garde,” hat­ed the servile bru­tal­ity and the dis­con­tent­ed spir­it of the stew­ard. He soon took note of the ob­jec­tions with which Sibilet op­posed all mea­sures that were re­al­ly ju­di­cious, and the rea­sons he gave for those that were ques­tion­able. In­stead of calm­ing the gen­er­al, Sibilet, as the read­er has al­ready seen, con­stant­ly ex­cit­ed him and drove him to harsh mea­sures, all the while try­ing to daunt him by draw­ing his at­ten­tion to count­less an­noy­ances, pet­ty vex­ations, and ev­er-​re­cur­ring and un­con­quer­able dif­fi­cul­ties. With­out sus­pect­ing the role of spy and ex­as­per­ator un­der­tak­en by Sibilet (who se­cret­ly in­tend­ed to even­tu­al­ly make choice in his own in­ter­ests be­tween Gaubertin and the gen­er­al) Michaud felt that the stew­ard's na­ture was bad and grasp­ing, and he was un­able to ex­plain to him­self its ap­par­ent hon­esty. The en­mi­ty which sep­arat­ed the two func­tionar­ies was sat­is­fac­to­ry to the gen­er­al. Michaud's ha­tred led him to watch the stew­ard, though he would not have con­de­scend­ed to play the part of spy if the gen­er­al had not re­quired it. Sibilet fawned up­on the bailiff and flat­tered him, with­out be­ing able to get any­thing from him be­yond an ex­treme po­lite­ness which the loy­al sol­dier es­tab­lished be­tween them as a bar­ri­er.

Now, all pre­lim­inary de­tails hav­ing been made known, the read­er will un­der­stand the con­duct of the gen­er­al's en­emies and the mean­ing of the con­ver­sa­tion which he had with what he called his two min­is­ters, af­ter Madame de Mont­cor­net, the abbe, and Blon­det left the break­fast-​ta­ble.