His wife's chair was against the wall beside the outer door of the house, above which could still be seen the arms of the Simeuse family, richly carved, with their noble motto, "Cy meurs." The old mother, in peasant dress, had moved her chair in front of Madame Michu, so that the latter might put her feet upon the rungs and keep them from dampness.
"Where's the boy ?" said Michu to his wife.
"Round the pond; he is crazy about the frogs and the insects," answered the mother.
Michu whistled in a way that made his hearers tremble.

The rapidity with which his son ran up to him proved plainly enough the despotic power of the bailiff of Gondreville.

Since 1789, but more especially since 1793, Michu had been well-nigh master of the property.

The terror he inspired in his wife, his mother-in-law, a servant-lad named Gaucher, and the cook named Marianne, was shared throughout a neighborhood of twenty miles in circumference.

It may be well to give, without further delay, the reasons for this fear,--all the more because an account of them will complete the moral portrait of the man.
The old Marquis de Simeuse transferred the greater part of his property in 1790; but, overtaken by circumstances, he had not been able to put the estate of Gondreville into sure hands.