"Oui, bas, comprend la literie," the headman assured him, talking as slowly as Hainaut, as if to covertly twit him back. "Pillows, sheets, and mattresses. Send boys for the best. Make house nouveau clean… tout d'abord," he vowed. "Be tres elegant."

"It had better be," Hainaut said with a miffed sniff, unfamiliar with noirs, but suspecting that he was slyly being japed. "Some men to sickle the grass, prune the bushes, too. Re-hang the shutters, there," he said, pointing again. "Paint walls, if paper is hopeless. Nail the parquet down. Floor? Loose floor pieces, hein? Make smooth?"

"Ah, oui" the gang leader replied, with a resigned shrug.

"All done by sundown, comprendre!"' Hainaut gleefully insisted.

The noir winced and sucked his teeth, but nodded assent.

"That room, there… be office for the little mouse clerk," Lt. Hainaut slyly instructed. "Small bed-cot, unbroken desk, and chest of drawers. Nothing good, mind. Well, get cracking. Vite, vite!"

Hainaut turned and trotted up the staircase, without a thought for the herculean task he'd just assigned, and did they not get it all presentable, well… too bad for the garcon chef! That was what whips were good for, Hainaut casually supposed, pour encourager les autres, so they saw the price of failure. Even Hugues, part-Black himself, had kept a form of slavery on Guadeloupe after the noirs had been "freed." Poorly paid, closely supervised labour gangs might not emulate the bloody massacres of former masters that had torn Saint Domingue to shreds. Idle hands were the Devil's workshop!

"Magnifique! Hainaut whispered on entering the former master's and mistress's chambers on the east side front. It was bigger than the salon below it, fronted by a deep, cool balcony and two sets of double doors, with separate shutter doors on the outside. The imported furnishings were suitable for a rich aristo's Paris maison; settees, chairs and draperies in expensive moire silks, elegantly carved night-tables, card tables, and chairs, lamp stands… with no windows facing the Nor'east Trades, the room had stayed pristine, despite being rifled.