He had come to sell this property, he said, and return home.

But the district charmed him, it appeared, for he did not quit it.

He was seen cultivating his little field, gathering a few vegetables upon which he subsisted.

He fished and hunted; many times the forest guards nearly caught him and were on the point of drawing up proces-verbaux against him.

This free existence, the resources of which the peasants could not clearly discover, at length gave him a bad reputation.