After 9 thermidor, the Count de Ribbing could return to France, where he bought three or four châteaux and two or three abbeys at a very low price. Among these châteaux were Villers-Hellon, Brunoy and Quincy. The count had acquired all these properties simply on the recommendations either of friends or of his solicitor. Villers-Hellon was, among others, quite unknown to him. One day he made up his mind to pay a visit to the lovely estate people had praised so much. Unluckily, the time was ill-chosen for seeing all its charms: the communal authorities of Villers-Hellon had handed over the château to an association of shoemakers who made shoes for the army, consequently the worthy disciples of St. Crépin had taken possession of the domain, had set up their workrooms in the salons and in the bedrooms and, the better to communicate with one another, they had made openings through the ceilings. When they had any oral communication to make, they made it by means of these peep-holes without having to leave their seats; if they had to come up or downstairs to see one another, they put ladders through these holes and so saved the turns and twists of the proper staircase. One can imagine how greatly such tenants would detract from the appearance of the château the count had just bought. The sights, and above all the smells, about the place so disgusted him that he fled precipitately back to Paris. Some days later he recounted his misadventure in his own witty way to M. Collard, then connected with the commissariat department of the army. M. Collard was more accustomed to the value of material goods than the noble exile, and he then and there offered to take over his purchase. M. de Ribbing consented, and Villers-Hellon became from that moment the property of M. Collard. Happily, the Count de Ribbing had still two or three other châteaux where he could reside instead of in the one he had just sold. He chose Brunoy, which later he gave up to his friend Talma, as he had Villers-Hellon to his friend Collard, and then he established himself in the château of Quincy. During the whole of Napoleon's reign the Count de Ribbing lived very quietly, spending his winters in Paris and his summers in the country, devoting himself to agriculture and to fishing in his ponds, in which, once, he caught such an enormous pike that when it was put in the scales with Adolphe at the other end, the pike was actually the heavier. Napoleon offered M. de Ribbing military positions more than once--offers which he I declined, on account of the Conqueror's love of invasion, fearing he might one day be compelled to carry arms against Sweden.