Valentine by George Sand

guard and disabused him of his suspicions concerning Louise with an air of candor by which Joseph was completely taken in. However, Bénédict realized that that was not enough, that he must put an end once for all to that spy’s malevolent schemes ; and he suddenly remembered something which seemed to promise a means of controlling him.
    â€œParbleu!
Monsieur Joseph,” he said, “I am veryglad that I met you. I have something to say to you that will interest you deeply.”
    Joseph opened his great ears, genuine lackey’s ears, deep and restless, quick to hear, careful to retain ; ears in which nothing is lost, in which everything can always be found on occasion.
    â€œMonsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud,” continued Bénédict, “the country gentleman who lives two or three leagues from here, and who slaughters hares and partridges in such multitudes that it is impossible to find any of either where he has been, told me the day before yesterday—we had just killed ten or twelve brace of young quail in the underbrush, for the excellent chevalier is a poacher as well as a gamekeeper—as I was saying, he told me the day before yesterday that he would be very glad to have such an intelligent fellow as you in his service.”
    â€œMonsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud said that ?” exclaimed his astonished auditor.
    â€œTo be sure. He’s a rich man, liberal and easy-going, meddles with nobody’s business, cares for nothing but hunting and the table, is harsh to his dogs but mild to his servants, hates domestic troubles, has been robbed ever since he came into the world, and is a subject for plunder if ever there was one. A man like you, who has had some education and could keep his accounts, reform the abuses in his household, and who would keep from annoying him just after dinner, might easily obtain anything from his easy-going disposition, reign in his house like a prince, and earn four times as much as in the service of Madame la Comtesse de Raimbault. Now, all these advantages are at your disposal, Monsieur Joseph, if you choose to go at once and offer the chevalier your services.”
    â€œI will go as fast as I can !” cried Joseph, who knew all about the place, and that it was a desirable one.
    â€œOne moment!” interposed Bénédict. “You must remember that, thanks to my taste for hunting and the well-known moral integrity of my family, the excellent chevalier has a really extraordinary affection for us all, and whoever should be so unfortunate as to offend me or to do any of my people a disservice,
would not be likely to rot
in his employment.”
    The tone in which these words were uttered made them perfectly intelligible to Joseph. He returned to the château, set the countess’s mind at rest, was shrewd enough to obtain the hundred francs as a reward for his zeal and trouble, and saved Valentine from the terrible examination to which her mother had proposed to subject her. A week later he entered the service of the Chevalier de Trigaud, whom he did not rob—he was too bright for that, and his master was so stupid that it was not worth the trouble—but whom he pillaged like a conquered province.
    In his desire not to miss such a valuable windfall, he had carried his cunning and his devotion to Bénédict so far as to give the countess false information concerning Louise’s place of abode. In three days he invented a story of a journey, which deceived Madame de Raimbault completely. He succeeded in retaining her confidence when he left her service. She had made no objection to his change of masters, and she soon ceased to think of him and his revelations. The marchioness, who loved Louise perhaps more than she had ever loved anyone, questioned Valentine. But she was too well acquainted with her grandmother’s weak and fickle character to trust her powerless affection with a secret of such momentous importance.