Do your work here gently; he'll tell you to manage the people with a high hand, for he begins to see where his crops and his woods are running to; but you'll not be such a fool as to let the country-folk maul you, and perhaps worse, for the sake of his timber." "But he would send me away, dear Monsieur Gaubertin, he would get rid of me! and you know how happy I am living there at the gate of the Avonne." "The general will soon get sick of the whole place," replied Gaubertin; "you wouldn't be long out even if he did happen to send you away.
Besides, you know those woods," he added, waving his hand at the landscape; "I am stronger there than the masters." This conversation took place in an open field.
"Those 'Arminac' Parisian fellows ought to stay in their own mud," said the keeper.
Ever since the quarrels of the fifteenth century the word 'Arminac' (Armagnacs, Parisians, enemies of the Dukes of Burgundy) has continued to be an insulting term along the borders of Upper Burgundy, where it is differently corrupted according to locality.
"He'll go back to it when beaten," said Gaubertin, "and we'll plough up the park; for it is robbing the people to allow a man to keep nine hundred acres of the best land in the valley for his own pleasure." "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.

They had come with Adeline and the children in a wicker carryall, lent by Sarcus's clerk, a Monsieur Gourdon, brother of the Soulanges doctor, who was richer than the magistrate himself.

The general, pleased with the candor and dignity of the justice of the peace, and with the graceful bearing of Adeline (both giving pledges in good faith, for they were totally ignorant of the plans of Gaubertin), at once granted all requests and gave such advantages to the family of the new land-steward as to make the position equal to that of a sub-prefect of the first class.
A lodge, built by Bouret as an object in the landscape and also as a home for the steward, an elegant little building, the architecture of which was sufficiently shown in the description of the gate of Blangy, was promised to the Sibilets for their residence.

The general also conceded the horse which Mademoiselle Laguerre had provided for Gaubertin, in consideration of the size of the estate and the distance he had to go to the markets where the business of the property was transacted.

He allowed two hundred bushels of wheat, three hogsheads of wine, wood in sufficient quantity, oats and barley in abundance, and three per cent on all receipts of income.