"He has changed since you last saw him ten years ago." It was true.

It had been, at least, ten years since the baron had seen Lacheneur's son.
How time flies! He had left him a boy; he found him a man.
Jean was just twenty; but his haggard features and his precocious beard made him appear much older.
He was tall and well formed, and his face indicated more than average intelligence.
Still he did not impress one favorably.

His restless eyes were always invading yours; and his smile betrayed an unusual degree of shrewdness, amounting almost to cunning.
As his father presented him, he bowed profoundly; but he was very evidently out of temper.
M.Lacheneur resumed: "Having no longer the means to maintain Jean in Paris, I have made him return.

My ruin will, perhaps, be a blessing to him.

The air of great cities is not good for the son of a peasant.