His forehead, much wrinkled by life in the open air and by constant anxieties, was flat and expressionless.  His aquiline nose redeemed the face somewhat; but the sole indication of any strength of character lay in the bushy eyebrows which retained their blackness, and in the brilliant coloring of his skin.  These signs were in some respects not misleading, for the worthy gentlemen, though simple and very gentle, was Catholic and monarchical in faith, and no consideration on earth could make him change his views.  Nevertheless he would have let himself be arrested without an effort at defence, and would have gone to the scaffold quietly.  His annuity of three thousand francs kept him from emigrating.  He therefore obeyed the government de facto without ceasing to love the royal family and to pray for their return, though he would firmly have refused to compromise himself by any effort in their favor.  He belonged to that class of royalists who ceaselessly remembered that they were beaten and robbed; and who remained thenceforth dumb, economical, rancorous, without energy; incapable of abjuring the past, but equally incapable of sacrifice; waiting to greet triumphant royalty; true to religion and true to the priesthood, but firmly resolved to bear in silence the shocks of fate.  Such an attitude cannot be considered that of maintaining opinions, it becomes sheer obstinacy.  Action is the essence of party.  Without intelligence, but loyal, miserly as a peasant yet noble in demeanor, bold in his wishes but discreet in word and action, turning all things to profit, willing even to be made mayor of Cinq-Cygne, Monsieur d’Hauteserre was an admirable representative of those honorable gentlemen on whose brow God Himself has written the word mites,—­Frenchmen who burrowed in their country homes and let the storms of the Revolution pass above their heads; who came once more to the surface under the Restoration, rich with their hidden savings, proud of their discreet attachment to the monarchy, and who, after 1830, recovered their estates.

Monsieur d’Hauteserre’s costume, expressive envelope of his distinctive character, described to the eye both the man and his period.  He always wore one of those nut-colored great-coats with small collars which the Duc d’Orleans made the fashion after his return from England, and which were, during the Revolution, a sort of compromise between the hideous popular garments and the elegant surtouts of the aristocracy.  His velvet waistcoat with flowered stripes, the style of which recalled those of Robespierre and Saint-Just, showed the upper part of a shirt-frill in fine plaits.  He still wore breeches; but his were of coarse blue cloth, with burnished steel buckles.  His stockings of black spun-silk defined his deer-like legs, the feet of which were shod in thick shoes, held in place by gaiters of black cloth.  He retained the former fashion of a muslin cravat in innumerable folds fastened by a gold buckle at the throat.  The worthy man had not intended an act of political eclecticism in adopting this costume, which combined the styles of peasant, revolutionist, and aristocrat; he simply and innocently obeyed the dictates of circumstances.