"Very well!" said Derville, "then I advise your Excellency to go to
Presles yourself, and invite this Margueron to dinner. Crottat will
send his head-clerk with a deed of sale drawn up, leaving only the
necessary lines for description of property and titles in blank. Your
Excellency should take with you part of the purchase money in a check
on the Bank of France, not forgetting the appointment of the son to
the collectorship. If you don't settle the thing at once that farm
will slip through your fingers. You don't know, Monsieur le comte, the
trickery of these peasants. Peasants against diplomat, and the
diplomat succumbs."

Crottat agreed in this advice, which the count, if we may judge by the
valet's statements to Pierrotin, had adopted. The preceding evening he
had sent Moreau a line by the diligence to Beaumont, telling him to
invite Margueron to dinner in order that they might then and there
close the purchase of the farm of Moulineaux.

Before this matter came up, the count had already ordered the chateau
of Presles to be restored and refurnished, and for the last year,
Grindot, an architect then in fashion, was in the habit of making a
weekly visit. So, while concluding his purchase of the farm, Monsieur
de Serizy also intended to examine the work of restoration and the
effect of the new furniture. He intended all this to be a surprise to
his wife when he brought her to Presles, and with this idea in his
mind, he had put some personal pride and self-love into the work. How
came it therefore that the count, who intended in the evening to drive
to Presles openly in his own carriage, should be starting early the
next morning incognito in Pierrotin's coucou?