country people
surnamed him the 'grand chasserot', the term which we here apply to
the sparrow-hawk. Besides all these advantages, he was handsome, alert,
straight, and well made, dark-haired and olive-skinned, like all the
Buxieres; he had his mother's caressing glance, but also the overhanging
eyelids and somewhat stern expression of his father, from whom he
inherited also a passionate temperament, and a spirit averse to all
kinds of restraint. They were fond of him throughout the country, and
M. de Buxieres, who felt his youth renewed in him, was very proud of
his adroitness and his good looks. He would invite him to his pleasure
parties, and make him sit at his own table, and confided unhesitatingly
all his secrets to him. In short, Claudet, finding himself quite at home
at the chateau, naturally considered himself as one of the family. There
was but one formality wanting to that end: recognizance according to
law. At certain favorable times, Manette Sejournant would gently urge M.
de Buxieres to have the situation legally authorized, to which he would
invariably reply, from a natural dislike to taking legal advisers into
his confidence:

"Don't worry about anything; I have no direct heir, and Claudet will
have all my fortune; my will and testament will be worth more to him
than a legal acknowledgment."

He would refer so often and so decidedly to his settled intention of
making Claudet his sole heir, that Manette, who knew very little about
what was required in such cases, considered the matter already secure.
She continued in unsuspecting serenity until Claude de Buxieres, in his
sixty-second year, died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy.

The will, which was to insure Claudet's future prospects, and to which
the deceased had so often alluded, did it really exist? Neither Manette
nor the grand chasserot had been able to obtain any certain knowledge
in the matter, the hasty search for it after the decease having been
suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the mayor of Vivey; and by the
proceedings of the justice of the peace. The seals being once imposed,
there was no means, in the absence of a verified will, of ascertaining
on whom the inheritance devolved, until the opening of the inventory;
and thus the Sejournants awaited with feverish anxiety the return of the
justice of the peace and his bailiff.

M. Destourbet and Stephen Seurrot pushed open a small door to the right
of the main gateway, passed rapidly u