I remarked also that when we received visitors, such, for instance, as the Marquis de Barbentane, our neighbour, my father, who when speaking of my mother before the servants called her “the mistress,” to the Marquis merely referred to her as “my wife.” The grand Marquis and his lady, the Marquise, a sister of the great Général de Gallifet, whenever they came used to bring me cakes and sweets, but in spite of this, no sooner did I see them driving up in their carriage than, like the young savage that I was, off I ran and hid in the hay-loft. In vain my poor mother would call “Frédéric.” Crouching in the hay and holding my breath, I waited until I heard the departing carriage wheels of our guests, and my mother declaiming for the benefit of all: “It is insufferable; here are Monsieur de Barbentane and Madame de Barbentane, who come on purpose to see that child, and he goes off and hides himself!” And when I crept out of my hiding-place, instead of the sweets, I received a good spanking. What I really loved, however, was to go off with Papoty, our head-man, when he set out with the plough behind the two mules. “Come on, youngster, and I’ll teach you to plough,” he would call enticingly. Then and there off I would go, bareheaded and barefooted, briskly following in the furrow, and as I ran, picking the flowers, primroses and blue musk, turned up by the blade. How joyous it was, this atmosphere of rustic life. Each season in turn brought its round of labour. Ploughing, sowing, shearing, reaping, the silk-worms, the harvests, the threshing, the vintage and the olive gathering, unrolled before my eyes the majestic acts of the agricultural life, always a stern, hard life, yet always one of calm and freedom. A numerous company of labourers came and went at the farm, weeders, haymakers, men hired by the day or the month, who with the goad, the rake, or the fork a-shoulder toiled with the free noble gestures of the peasants so well depicted in Léopold Robert’s pictures. At the dinner or supper hour, the men, one after the other, trooped into the farm-house, seating themselves according to their station around the big table. Then the master, my father, at the head, would question them gravely on the work of the day, the state of the flocks, of the ground or the weather. The repast ended, the chief carter shut to the blade of his big clasp-knife, the signal for all to rise. In stature, in mind, as well as in character, my father towered above these country folk, a grand old patriarch, dignified in speech, just in his rule, beneficent to the poor, severe only to himself. He loved to recall the early days when as a volunteer he served in the army during the revolution, and to recount tales of the war as we sat round the hearth in the evening.