The intimacies of his wife with Gaubertin and the keepers and the
rural authorities, together with the laxity of the times, secured him
impunity. As soon as his children were large enough he made them
serviceable to his comfort, caring no more for their morality than for
that of his wife. He had two sons and two daughters. Tonsard, who
lived, as did his wife, from hand to mouth, might have come to an end
of this easy life if he had not maintained a sort of martial law over
his family, which compelled them to work for the preservation of it.
When he had brought up his children, at the cost of those from whom
his wife was able to extort gifts, the following charter and budget
were the law at the Grand-I-Vert.

Tonsard's old mother and his two daughters, Catherine and Marie, went
into the woods at certain seasons twice a-day, and came back laden
with fagots which overhung the crutch of their poles at least two feet
beyond their heads. Though dried sticks were placed on the outside of
the heap, the inside was made of live wood cut from young trees. In
plain words, Tonsard helped himself to his winter's fuel in the woods
of Les Aigues. Besides this, father and sons were constantly poaching.
From September to March, hares, rabbits, partridges, deer, in short,
all the game that was not eaten at the chateau, was sold at Blangy and
at Soulanges, where Tonsard's two daughters peddled milk in the early
mornings,--coming back with the news of the day, in return for the
gossip they carried about Les Aigues, and Cerneux, and Conches. In the
months when the three Tonsards were unable to hunt with a gun, they
set traps. If the traps caught more game than they could eat, La
Tonsard made pies of it and sent them to Ville-aux-Fayes. In
harvest-time seven Tonsards--the old mother, the two sons (until they
were seventeen years of age), the two daughters, together with old
Fourchon and Mouche--gleaned, and generally brought in about sixteen