a tree at the hour
of noonday rest, his dreams were as simple as those of an infant.

"If I could but amass a hundred pistoles," he thought, "I would ask
Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not
refuse me." A hundred pistoles! A thousand francs!--an enormous sum
for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven
louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the
depths of his straw mattress.

Still he did not despair. He had read in Martha's eyes that she would
wait.

And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his god-mother;
and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps,
interest her in his love-affair.

Then the terrible storm of the revolution burst over France.

With the fall of the first thunder-bolts, the Duke of Sairmeuse left
France with the Count d'Artois. They took refuge in foreign lands as
a passer-by seeks shelter in a doorway from a summer shower, saying to
himself: "This will not last long."

The storm did last, however; and the following year Mlle. Armande, who
had remained at Sairmeuse, died.

The chateau was then closed, the president of the district took
possession of the keys in the name of the government, and the servants
were scattered.

Lacheneur took up his residence in Montaignac.

Young, daring, and personally attractive, blessed with an energetic
face, and an intelligence far above his station, it was not long before
he became well known in the political clubs.

For three months Lacheneur was the tyrant of Montaignac.

But this metier of public speaker is by no means lucrative, so the
surprise throughout the district was immense, when it was ascertained
that the former ploughboy had purchased the chateau, and almost all the
land belonging to his old master.

It is true that the nation had sold this princely domain for scarcely
a twentieth part of its real value. The appraisement was sixty-nine
thousand francs. It was giving the property away.

And yet, it was necessary to have this amount, and Lacheneur possessed
it, since he had poured it in a flood of beautiful louis d'or into the
hands of the receiver of the district.

From that moment his popularity waned. The patriots who had applauded
the ploughboy, cursed the capitalist. He discreetly left them to recover
from their rage as best they could, and returned to Sairmeuse. There
everyone bowed low before Citoyen Lacheneur.