A few months later, it became known that he was going to marry a servant, notorious for her bad morals, the innkeeper’s servant.  The young fellows said that the girl, knowing that he was pretty well off, had been to his cottage every night, and had taken him, overcome him, led him on to matrimony, little by little, night by night.

And then, having been to the mayor’s office and to church, she now lived in the house which her man had bought, while he continued to tend his flocks, day and night, on the plains.

And the brigadier added: 

“Polyte has been sleeping with her for three weeks, for the thief has no place of his own to go to!”

The gendarme make a little joke: 

“He takes the shepherd’s blankets.”

Madame Lecacheur, who was seized by a fresh access of rage, of rage increased by a married woman’s anger against debauchery, exclaimed: 

“It is she, I am sure.  Go there.  Ah! the blackguard thieves!”

But the brigadier was quite unmoved.

“A minute,” he said.  “Let us wait until twelve o’clock, as he goes and dines there every day.  I shall catch them with it under their noses.”

The gendarme smiled, pleased at his chief’s idea, and Lecacheur also smiled now, for the affair of the shepherd struck him as very funny:  deceived husbands are always amusing.

* * * * *

Twelve o’clock had just struck when the brigadier, followed by his man, knocked gently three times at the door of a little lonely house, situated at the corner of a wood, five hundred yards from the village.

They had been standing close against the wall, so as not to be seen from within, and they waited.  As nobody answered, the brigadier knocked again in a minute or two.  It was so quiet, that the house seemed uninhabited; but Lenient, the gendarme, who had very quick ears, said that he heard somebody moving about inside, and then Senateur got angry.  He would not allow anyone to resist the authority of the law for a moment, and, knocking at the door with the hilt of his sword, he cried out: 

“Open the door, in the name of the law.”

As this order had no effect, he roared out: 

“If you do not obey, I shall smash the lock.  I am the brigadier of the gendarmerie, by G—!  Here Lenient.”

He had not finished speaking when the door opened and Senateur saw before him a fat girl, with a very red color, blowzy, with pendant breasts, a big stomach and broad hips, a sort of sanguine and bestial female, the wife of the shepherd Severin, and he went into the cottage.

“I have come to pay you a visit, as I want to make a little search,” he said, and he looked about him.  On the table there was a plate, a jug of cider and a glass half full, which proved that a meal had been going on.  Two knives were lying side by side, and the shrewd gendarme winked at his superior officer.