1827 the little man could realize the dream of his whole life. By
paying four hundred thousand francs down, and binding himself to
further instalments, which compelled him to live for six years on the
air as it came, to use his own expression, he was able to purchase the
estate of Anzy on the banks of the Loire, about two leagues above
Sancerre, and its magnificent castle built by Philibert de l'Orme, the
admiration of every connoisseur, and for five centuries the property
of the Uxelles family. At last he was one of the great landowners of
the province! It is not absolutely certain that the satisfaction of
knowing that an entail had been created, by letters patent dated back
to December 1820, including the estates of Anzy, of La Baudraye, and
of La Hautoy, was any compensation to Dinah on finding herself reduced
to unconfessed penuriousness till 1835.

This sketch of the financial policy of the first Baron de la Baudraye
explains the man completely. Those who are familiar with the manias of
country folks will recognize in him the _land-hunger_ which becomes
such a consuming passion to the exclusion of every other; a sort of
avarice displayed in the sight of the sun, which often leads to ruin
by a want of balance between the interest on mortgages and the
products of the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merely
laughed at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibault
and attending to his business, like a merchant living on his
vineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion seized his
prey, after waiting for the day when the extravagance of the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale of that splendid property.

Madame Piedefer came to live with her daughter. The combined fortunes
of Monsieur de la Baudraye and his mother-in-law, who had been content
to accept an annuity of twelve hundred francs on the lands of La