Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father was sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme.  The trial of Chantegreil had remained a memorable case in the province.  The poacher boldly confessed that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that the latter had been taking aim at him.  “I only anticipated him,” he said, “I defended myself; it was a duel, not a murder.”  He never desisted from this line of argument.  The presiding Judge of the Assizes could not make him understand that, although a gendarme has the right to fire upon a poacher, a poacher has no right to fire upon a gendarme.  Chantegreil escaped the guillotine, owing to his obviously sincere belief in his own innocence, and his previous good character.  The man wept like a child when his daughter was brought to him prior to his departure for Toulon.  The little thing, who had lost her mother in her infancy, dwelt at this time with her grandfather at Chavanoz, a village in the passes of the Seille.  When the poacher was no longer there, the old man and the girl lived upon alms.  The inhabitants of Chavanoz, all sportsmen and poachers, came to the assistance of the poor creatures whom the convict had left behind him.  After a while, however, the old man died of grief, and Miette, left alone by herself, would have had to beg on the high roads, if the neighbours had not remembered that she had an aunt at Plassans.  A charitable soul was kind enough to take her to this aunt, who did not, however, receive her very kindly.

Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of meger Rebufat, was a big, dark, stubborn creature, who ruled the home.  She led her husband by the noise, said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans.  The truth was, Rebufat, avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of respect for this big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with strict sobriety and economy.

Thanks to her, the household thrived.  The meger grumbled one evening when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed there.  But his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice:  “Bah, the little thing’s strongly built, she’ll do for a servant; we’ll keep her and save wages.”

This calculation pleased Rebufat.  He went so far as to feel the little thing’s arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for her age.  Miette was then nine years old.  From the very next day he made use of her.  The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France is much lighter than in the North.  One seldom sees them employed in digging the ground, carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men’s work.  They bind sheaves, gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps their most laborious work is that of weeding.  Miette worked away willingly.  Open-air life was her delight, her health.  So long as her aunt lived she was always smiling.  The good woman, in spite of her roughness, at last loved her as her own child; she forbade her doing the hard work which her husband sometimes tried to force upon her, saying to the latter: