All these dear creatures would be very uneasy if I did not return to them to-night, and I have forty-five miles to go." "Your horses are in good condition," said the Marquis de Simeuse.
"Oh! I am just from Troyes, where I had business yesterday." After the customary polite inquiries for the Marquise de Chargeboeuf and other matters really uninteresting but about which politeness assumes that we are keenly interested, it dawned on Monsieur d'Hauteserre that the old gentleman had come to warn his young relatives against imprudence.

He remarked that times were changed and no one could tell what the Emperor might now become.
"Oh!" said Laurence, "he'll make himself God." The Marquis spoke of the wisdom of concession.

When he stated, with more emphasis and authority than he put into his other remarks, the necessity of submission, Monsieur d'Hauteserre looked at his sons with an almost supplicating air.
"Would you serve that man ?" asked the Marquis de Simeuse.
"Yes, I would, if the interests of my family required it," replied Monsieur de Chargeboeuf.
Gradually the old man made them aware, though vaguely, of some threatened danger.

When Laurence begged him to explain the nature of it, he advised the four young men to refrain from hunting and to keep themselves as much in retirement as possible.
"You treat the domain of Gondreville as if it were your own," he said to the Messieurs de Simeuse, "and you are keeping alive a deadly hatred.

I see, by the surprise upon your faces, that you are quite unaware of the ill-will against you at Troyes, where your late brave conduct is remembered.