conciliated the good-will of those about her. Madame de Dey had fully
understood the difficulties that awaited her on coming to Carentan. To
seek to occupy a leading position would be daily defiance to the
scaffold; yet she pursued her even way. Sustained by her motherly
courage, she won the affections of the poor by comforting
indiscriminately all miseries, and she made herself necessary to the
rich by assisting their pleasures. She received the procureur of the
commune, the mayor, the judge of the district court, the public
prosecutor, and even the judges of the revolutionary tribunal.

The first four of these personages, being bachelors, courted her with
the hope of marriage, furthering their cause by either letting her see
the evils they could do her, or those from which they could protect
her. The public prosecutor, previously an attorney at Caen, and the
manager of the countess's affairs, tried to inspire her with love by
an appearance of generosity and devotion; a dangerous attempt for her.
He was the most to be feared among her suitors. He alone knew the
exact condition of the property of his former client. His passion was
increased by cupidity, and his cause was backed by enormous power, the
power of life and death throughout the district. This man, still
young, showed so much apparent nobleness and generosity in his
proceedings that Madame de Dey had not yet been able to judge him.
But, disregarding the danger that attends all attempts at subtilty
with Normans, she employed the inventive wit and slyness which Nature
grants to women in opposing the four rivals one against the other. By
thus gaining time, she hoped to come safe and sound to the end of the
national troubles. At this period, the royalists in the interior of
France expected day by day that the Revolution would be ended on the
morrow. This conviction was the ruin of very many of them.