Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune contributed to make him a person of importance. From that time forth he felt a very decided aversion for the Sieur du Crosier; and though there was little rancor in his composition, he set others against the sometime forage-contractor. Du Croisier, on the other hand, was a man to bear a grudge and nurse a vengeance for a score of years. He hated Chesnel and the d’Esgrignon family with the smothered, all-absorbing hate only to be found in a country town. His rebuff had simply ruined him with the malicious provincials among whom he had come to live, thinking to rule over them. It was so real a disaster that he was not long in feeling the consequences of it. He betook himself in desperation to a wealthy old maid, and met with a second refusal. Thus failed the ambitious schemes with which he had started. He had lost his hope of a marriage with Mlle. d’Esgrignon, which would have opened the Faubourg Saint-Germain of the province to him; and after the second rejection, his credit fell away to such an extent that it was almost as much as he could do to keep his position in the second rank. In 1805, M. de la Roche-Guyon, the oldest son of an ancient family which had previously intermarried with the d’Esgrignons, made proposals in form through Maitre Chesnel for Mlle. Marie Armande Clair d’Esgrignon. She declined to hear the notary. “You must have guessed before now that I am a mother, dear Chesnel,” she said; she had just put her nephew, a fine little boy of five, to bed. The old Marquis rose and went up to his sister, but just returned from the cradle; he kissed her hand reverently, and as he sat down again, found words to say: “My sister, you are a d’Esgrignon.” A quiver ran through the noble girl; the tears stood in her eyes. M. d’Esgrignon, the father of the present Marquis, had married a second wife, the daughter of a farmer of taxes ennobled by Louis XIV. It was a shocking mesalliance in the eyes of his family, but fortunately of no importance, since a daughter was the one child of the marriage. Armande knew this. Kind as her brother had always been, he looked on her as a stranger in blood. And this speech of his had just recognized her as one of the family. And was not her answer the worthy crown of eleven years of her noble life? Her every action since she came of age had borne the stamp of the purest devotion; love for her brother was a sort of religion with her. “I shall die Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” she said simply, turning to the notary. “For you there could be no fairer title,” returned Chesnel, meaning to convey a compliment. Poor Mlle. d’Esgrignon reddened.