He lived side by side with peasants and poachers, and had himself become a regular country yeoman, wearing a blouse, dining at the wine-shop, and taking more pleasure in speaking the mountain patois than his own native French.

The untimely death of his father, killed by an awkward huntsman while following the hounds, had emancipated him at the age of twenty years.

From this period he lived his life freely, as he understood it; always in the open air, without hindrance of any sort, and entirely unrestrained.
Nothing was exaggerated in the stories told concerning him.

He was a handsome fellow, jovial and dashing in his ways, and lavish with his money, so he met with few rebuffs.

Married women, maids, widows, any peasant girl of attractive form or feature, all had had to resist his advances, and with more than one the resistance had been very slight.