The Vicomte laughed in his kindly way at what he was pleased to term my high-handedness.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried; "what a grasp of steel.

But they will be surprised--the bourgeois.

I have always been so tolerant.

I have ruled by kindness." "He who rules by kindness is the slave of thieves," I answered, penning the letter we had decided to indite.
The Vicomte laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said, "so long as we begin as we intend to go on." Such in any case was the beginning, and this my introduction to the duties I had undertaken.

They seemed simple enough, and especially so to one who was no novice at the administration of an estate.