The old Marquis de Simeuse transferred the greater part of his
property in 1790; but, overtaken by circumstances, he had not been
able to put the estate of Gondreville into sure hands. Accused of
corresponding with the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of Cobourg,
the marquis and his wife were thrust into prison and condemned to
death by the revolutionary tribunal of Troyes, of which Madame Michu's
father was then president. The fine domain of Gondreville was sold as
national property. The head-keeper, to the horror of many, was present
at the execution of the marquis and his wife in his capacity as
president of the club of Jacobins at Arcis. Michu, the orphan son of a
peasant, showered with benefactions by the marquise, who brought him
up in her own home and gave him his place as keeper, was regarded as a
Brutus by excited demagogues; but the people of the neighborhood
ceased to recognize him after this act of base ingratitude. The
purchaser of the estate was a man from Arcis named Marion, grandson of
a former bailiff in the Simeuse family. This man, a lawyer before and
after the Revolution, was afraid of the keeper; he made him his
bailiff with a salary of three thousand francs, and gave him an
interest in the sales of timber; Michu, who was thought to have some
ten thousand francs of his own laid by, married the daughter of a
tanner at Troyes, an apostle of the Revolution in that town, where he
was president of the revolutionary tribunal. This tanner, a man of
profound convictions, who resembled Saint-Just as to character, was
afterwards mixed up in Baboeuf's conspiracy and killed himself to
escape execution. Marthe was the handsomest girl in Troyes. In spite
of her shrinking modesty she had been forced by her formidable father
to play the part of Goddess of Liberty in some republican ceremony.

The new proprietor came only three times to Gondreville in the course