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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.
Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside double-doors, which were added to the other doors as much to stifle sounds as to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing business brought him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to confer together at night.
"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.
And an old maid, Mademoiselle Gaubertin-Vallat, sister of Madame Sibilet, the sheriff's wife, held the office for the sale of stamped paper. Thus, wherever we turn in Ville-aux-Fayes we meet some member of the invisible coalition, whose avowed chief, recognized as such by every one, great and small, was the mayor of the town, the general agent for the entire timber business, Gaubertin!
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?
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.
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.
"Pere Fourchon and his son-in-law Tonsard," said the abbe, "are the strength and the intelligence of the lower classes of this valley, who consult them on all occasions. The Machiavelism of these people is beyond belief. Ten peasants meeting in a tavern are the small change of great political questions." Just then Francois announced Monsieur Sibilet.
"He has earned his twenty francs, Monsieur le comte," said Sibilet; "the otter is fully worth it." "Give him twenty francs," said the general to the footman. "Do you mean to take my otter away from me?" said Blondet to the general. "I shall have it stuffed," replied the latter. "Ah! but that good gentleman said I might keep the skin," cried Fourchon.
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.
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