I was sure these things ought not to be.  I thought infinitely more good might be done by helping the peasants to make the most of what they had, and by preventing them from being robbed in my son’s name, than by dealing out gallons of soup and piles of bread at the castle gates to relieve the misery we had brought on them, or by dressing the horrible sores that were caused by dirt and bad food.  I told the Abbe, and he said it was a noble inspiration in itself, but that he feared that one lady, and she a foreigner, could not change the customs of centuries, and that innovations were dangerous.  I also tried to fire with the same zeal for reformation the Abbess of Bellaise, who was a young and spirited woman, open to conviction; but she was cloistered, and could not go to investigate matters as I did, with the Abbe for my escort, and often with my son.  He was enchanted to present any little gift, and it was delightful that the peasants should learn to connect all benefits with Monsieur le Marquis, as they already called the little fellow.

I think they loved me the better when they found that I was the grandchild of the Madame Eustace who had been hidden in their cottages.  I found two or three old people who still remembered her wanderings when she kept the cows and knitted like a peasant girl among them.  I was even shown the ruinous chamber where my aunt Thistlewood was born, and the people were enchanted to hear how much the dear old lady had told me of them, and of their ways, and their kindness to her.

I encouraged the people to make their cottages clean and not to be afraid of comforts, promising that our intendant at least should not interfere with them.  I likewise let him know that I would not have men forced to leave their fields when it would ruin their crops, and that it was better that ours should suffer than theirs.  He was obsequious in manner and then disobeyed me, till one day I sent three labourers back again to secure their own hay before they touched ours.  And when the harvest was gathered in the Abbe and I went round the fields of the poor, and I pointed out the sheaves that might be marked, and they were not the best.

I taught the girls to knit as they watched their cows, and promised to buy some of their stockings, so that they might obtain sabots for themselves with the price.  They distrusted me at first, but before long, they began to perceive that I was their friend, and I began to experience a nice kind of happiness.

Alas! even this was too sweet to last, or perhaps, as the good Abbe warned me, I was pleasing myself too much with success, and with going my own way.  The first murmur of the storm came thus:  I had been out all the afternoon with the Abbe, Armantine’s bonne, and the two children, looking at the vineyards, which always interested me much because we have none like them in England.  In one, where they were already treading the grapes, the good woman begged