Gaubertin and the general would have understood the matter, and the latter, by sparing the steward's self-love would have given him a chance to withdraw quietly.Gaubertin, in that case, would have left his late employer in peace, and possibly he might have taken himself and his savings to Paris for investment.But being, as he was, ignominiously dismissed, the man conceived against his late master one of those bitter hatreds which are literally a part of existence in provincial life, the persistency, duration, and plots of which would astonish diplomatists who are trained to let nothing astonish them.A
burning desire for vengeance led him to settle at Ville-aux-Fayes, and to take a position where he could injure Montcornet and stir up sufficient enmity against to force him to sell Les Aigues.
The general was deceived by appearances; for Gaubertin's external behavior was not of a nature to warn or to alarm him.The late steward followed his old custom of pretending, not exactly poverty, but limited means.For years he had talked of his wife and three children, and the heavy expenses of a large family.Mademoiselle Laguerre, to whom he had declared himself too poor to educate his son in Paris, paid the costs herself, and allowed her dear godson (for she was Claude Gaubertin's sponsor) two thousand francs a year.