aron managed his household
himself, and employed a large number of day-laborers, farm servants, and
kitchen-girls, whom the liveried servants treated with great disdain.
The rustics, on their side, resisted these privileged lackeys and called
them "coxcombs" and "Parisians," sometimes accompanying these remarks
with the most expressive blows. Between these tribes of sworn enemies
a third class, much less numerous, found them selves in a critical
position; these were the two servants brought by Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil. It was fortunate for them that their mistress liked large,
vigorous men, and had chosen them for their broad, military shoulders;
but for that it would have been impossible for them to come out of their
daily quarrels safe and sound.

The question of superiority between the two households had been the
first apple of discord; a number of personal quarrels followed
to inflame them. They fought for their colors the whole time; the
Bergenheim livery was red, the Corandeuil green. There were two flags;
each exalted his own while throwing that of his adversaries in the mud.
Greenhorn and crab were jokes; cucumber and lobster were insults.

Such were the gracious terms exchanged every day between the two
parties. In the midst of this civil war, which was carefully concealed
from their masters' eyes, whose severity they feared, lived one rather
singular personage. Leonard Rousselet, Pere Rousselet, as he was
generally called, was an old peasant who, disheartened with life, had
made various efforts to get out of his sphere, but had never
succeeded in doing so. Having been successively hairdresser, sexton,
school-teacher, nurse, and gardener, he had ended, when sixty years
old, by falling back to the very point whence he started. He had no
particular employment in M. de Bergenheim's house; he went on errands,
cared for the gardens, and doctored the mules and horses; he was a tall
man, about as much at ease in his clothing as a dry almond in its shell.
A long, dark, yellow coat usually hung about the calves of his legs,
which were covered with long, blue woollen stockings, and looked more
like vine-poles than human legs; a conformation which furnished daily
jokes for the other servants, to which the old man deigned no response
save a disdainful smile, grumbling through his teeth, "Menials, peasants
without education." This latter speech expressed the late gardener's
scorn, for it had been his greatest grief to pa