tment
of a certain "juge de paix" at Beaumont and also at Isle-Adam, he had,
in the same year, prevented the dismissal of a keeper-general of the
Forests, and obtained the cross of the Legion of honor for the first
cavalry-sergeant at Beaumont. Consequently, no festivity was ever given
among the bourgeoisie to which Monsieur and Madame Moreau were not
invited. The rector of Presles and the mayor of Presles came every
evening to play cards with them. It is difficult for a man not to be
kind and hospitable after feathering his nest so comfortably.

A pretty woman, and an affected one, as all retired waiting-maids
of great ladies are, for after they are married they imitate their
mistresses, Madame Moreau imported from Paris all the new fashions. She
wore expensive boots, and never was seen on foot, except, occasionally,
in the finest weather. Though her husband allowed but five hundred
francs a year for her toilet, that sum is immense in the provinces,
especially if well laid out. So that Madame Moreau, fair, rosy, and
fresh, about thirty-six years of age, still slender and delicate in
shape in spite of her three children, played the young girl and gave
herself the airs of a princess. If, when she drove by in her caleche,
some stranger had asked, "Who is she?" Madame Moreau would have been
furious had she heard the reply: "The wife of the steward at Presles."
She wished to be taken for the mistress of the chateau. In the villages,
she patronized the people in the tone of a great lady. The influence of
her husband over the count, proved in so many years, prevented the small
bourgeoisie from laughing at Madame Moreau, who, in the eyes of the
peasants, was really a personage.

Estelle (her name was Estelle) took no more part in the affairs of the
stewardship then the wife of a broker does in her husband's affairs at
the Bourse. She even depended on Moreau for the care of the household
and their own fortune. Confident of his _means_, she was a thousand
leagues from dreaming that this comfortable existence, which had lasted
for seventeen years, could ever be endangered. And yet, when she heard
of the count's determination to restore the magnificent chateau, she
felt that her enjoyments were threatened, and she urged her husband to
come to the arrangement with Leger about Les Moulineaux, so that they
might retire from Presles and live at Isle-Adam. She had no intention
of returning to a position that was more or less that of a