a noble. The governor found by his Lordship the Bishop for the hope of
the house, the young Comte Victurnien d'Esgrignon, was an elderly
Oratorian who must be paid a certain salary, although he lived with
the family. The wages of a cook, a waiting-woman for Mlle. Armande, an
old valet for M. le Marquis, and a couple of other servants, together
with the daily expenses of the household, and the cost of an education
for which nothing was spared, absorbed the whole family income, in
spite of Mlle. Armande's economies, in spite of Chesnel's careful
management, and the servants' affection. As yet, Chesnel had not been
able to set about repairs at the ruined castle; he was waiting till
the leases fell in to raise the rent of the farms, for rents had been
rising lately, partly on account of improved methods of agriculture,
partly by the fall in the value of money, of which the landlord would
get the benefit at the expiration of leases granted in 1809.

The Marquis himself knew nothing of the details of the management of
the house or of his property. He would have been thunderstruck if he
had been told of the excessive precautions needed "to make both ends
of the year meet in December," to use the housewife's saying, and he
was so near the end of his life, that every one shrank from opening
his eyes. The Marquis and his adherents believed that a House, to
which no one at Court or in the Government gave a thought, a House
that was never heard of beyond the gates of the town, save here and
there in the same department, was about to revive its ancient
greatness, to shine forth in all its glory. The d'Esgrignons' line
should appear with renewed lustre in the person of Victurnien, just as
the despoiled nobles came into their own again, and the handsome heir
to a great estate would be in a position to go to Court, enter the
King's service, and marry (as other d'Esgrignons had done before him)
a Navarreins, a Cadignan, a d'Uxelles, a Beausant, a Blamont-Chauvry;