less than a child; he was the
voluntary liege man of the house, a serf bound to his lord by all the
ties of affection. There was no balancing of obligations; the sincere
affection on either side put them out of the question.

In the eyes of the Marquis, Chesnel's official dignity was as nothing;
his old servitor was merely disguised as a notary. As for Chesnel, the
Marquis was now, as always, a being of a divine race; he believed in
nobility; he did not blush to remember that his father had thrown open
the doors of the salon to announce that "My Lord Marquis is served."
His devotion to the fallen house was due not so much to his creed as to
egoism; he looked on himself as one of the family. So his vexation was
intense. Once he had ventured to allude to his mistake in spite of the
Marquis' prohibition, and the old noble answered gravely--"Chesnel,
before the troubles you would not have permitted yourself to entertain
such injurious suppositions. What can these new doctrines be if they
have spoiled _you_?"

Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people
looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune
contributed to make him a person of importance. From that time forth he
felt a very decided aversion for the Sieur du Crosier; and though there
was little rancor in his composition, he set others against the sometime
forage-contractor. Du Croisier, on the other hand, was a man to bear a
grudge and nurse a vengeance for a score of years. He hated Chesnel and
the d'Esgrignon family with the smothered, all-absorbing hate only to
be found in a country town. His rebuff had simply ruined him with the
malicious provincials among whom he had come to live, thinking to rule
over them. It was so real a disaster that he was not long in feeling the
consequences of it. He betook himself in desperation to a wealthy old
maid, and met with a second refusal. Thus failed the ambitious schemes
with which he had started. He had lost his hope of a marriage with Mlle.
d'Esgrignon, which would have opened the Faubourg Saint-Germain of the
province to him; and after the second rejection, his credit fell away
to such an extent that it was almost as much as he could do to keep his
position in the second rank.

In 1805, M. de la Roche-Guyon, the oldest son of an ancient family which
had previously intermarried with the d'Esgrignons, made proposals in
form through Maitre Chesnel for Mlle. Marie Armande Clair d'Esgrigno