“He is a bold man,” said Sibilet.  “He really is, as he calls himself, the steward of the best half of the department, instead of being merely the steward of Les Aigues.  He makes a little out of everybody, and that little on every two millions brings him in forty to fifty thousand francs a year.  He says himself, ’The fires on the Parisian hearths pay it all.’  He is your enemy, Monsieur le comte.  My advice to you is to capitulate and be reconciled with him.  He is intimate, as you know, with Soudry, the head of the gendarmerie at Soulanges; with Monsieur Rigou, our mayor at Blangy; the patrols are under his influence; therefore you will find it impossible to repress the pilferings which are eating into your estate.  During the last two years your woods have been devastated.  Consequently the Gravelots are more than likely to win their suit.  They say, very truly:  ’According to the terms of the lease, the care of the woods is left to the owner; he does not protect them, and we are injured; the owner is bound to pay us damages.’  That’s fair enough; but it doesn’t follow that they should win their case.”

“We must be ready to defend this suit at all costs,” said the general, “and then we shall have no more of them.”

“You shall gratify Gaubertin,” remarked Sibilet.

“How so?”

“Suing the Gravelots is the same as a hand to hand fight with Gaubertin, who is their agent,” answered Sibilet.  “He asks nothing better than such a suit.  He declares, so I hear, that he will bring you if necessary before the Court of Appeals.”

“The rascal! the—­”

“If you attempt to work your own woods,” continued Sibilet, turning the knife in the wound, “you will find yourself at the mercy of workmen who will force you to pay rich men’s prices instead of market-prices.  In short, they’ll put you, as they did that poor Mariotte, in a position where you must sell at a loss.  If you then try to lease the woods you will get no tenants, for you cannot expect that any one should take risks for himself which Mariotte only took for the crown and the State.  Suppose a man talks of his losses to the government!  The government is a gentleman who is, like your obedient servant when he was in its employ, a worthy man with a frayed overcoat, who reads the newspapers at a desk.  Let his salary be twelve hundred or twelve thousand francs, his disposition is the same, it is not a whit softer.  Talk of reductions and releases from the public treasury represented by the said gentleman!  He’ll only pooh-pooh you as he mends his pen.  No, the law is the wrong road for you, Monsieur le comte.”

“Then what’s to be done?” cried the general, his blood boiling as he tramped up and down before the bench.

“Monsieur le comte,” said Sibilet, abruptly, “what I say to you is not for my own interests, certainly; but I advise you to sell Les Aigues and leave the neighborhood.”

On hearing these words the general sprang back as if a cannon-ball had struck him; then he looked at Sibilet with a shrewd, diplomatic eye.