“Are these your papers, Mme. Jeannette?” said he.
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you allow me to look at them a little?”
“You can do as you please with them,” said she; “they are of no use to us.”
Then Nadasi, who had turned pale, folded up the parchment with several others, saying: “I will see about that.... It is striking nine o’clock; good-night.”
He went away, and the rest soon followed him.
Eight days after this, Nadasi set out for La Vendée; he had obtained from Coustel and Dame Jeannette his wife their signature to a paper which gave him full power to recover, alienate, and sell all their property, taking upon himself the expenses, with the understanding that he was to be repaid if he obtained the inheritance for them.
Soon after a report was spread in the village that Mme. Jeannette was a noble lady, that she owned a château in La Vendée, and that Coustel would soon receive a large income; but afterwards Nadasi wrote that he had arrived six weeks too late; that the own brother of Mme. Jeannette had shown him papers which made it as clear as the day that he had held possession of the marshes for more than thirty years; and that, whenever one holds the property of another for more than thirty years, it is the same as if one had always had it; so that Jean-Pierre Coustel and his wife, on account of their relations having thus enjoyed their property, had no longer any claim to it.
These poor people, who had thought themselves rich, and whom all the village had gone, according to custom, to congratulate and flatter, when they found they were to have nothing, felt their poverty still more keenly than before, and not long afterwards they died within a short time of each other, like Christians, asking of the Lord pardon for their sins, and confident in the hope of eternal life.
Nadasi sold his post of bailiff, and did not return to the country; doubtless he had found some employment which suited him better than serving citations.