; 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 b