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.