He entered the army, and, after seven years of soldiering was discharged in 1859.  When he had left the ranks he turned up at Bazoches-le-Doyen with a comrade, a joiner like himself; and he resumed his occupation with the latter’s father, a master carpenter in the village.  But his heart was no longer in his work, and having been sent to La Borderie to make some repairs, he stayed on to assist at the harvest, and eventually became a regular farm servant.  He was not popular, however, with the peasants, who resented his having had a trade before he came back to the soil.  He became acquainted at Rognes with Mouche and his daughters, Lise and Francoise, and eventually married the latter, in spite of the determined opposition of her brother-in-law, Buteau.  Notwithstanding his marriage, he remained a stranger, and, after the death of his wife, went away, leaving everything in the hands of her relatives.  The war with Germany had just broken out, and Jean, disgusted with his life, again enlisted in the service of his country.  La Terre.

He was made corporal in the 106th Regiment of the line, commanded by Colonel Vineuil.  An excellent soldier, and invaluable by reason of his former experience, his want of education prevented him being promoted to higher rank.  Maurice Levasseur was in his company, and between the two men there was at first deep antagonism, caused by difference of class and education, but little by little Jean was able to gain over the other, till the two men became close friends.  In the fierce fighting at Sedan, each in turn saved the other’s life.  After the battle, they were made prisoners, but escaped, Jean receiving a severe wound during their flight.  They took refuge at Remilly in the house of Fouchard, and Jean was nursed by Henriette Weiss, Levasseur’s sister.  Under her care, the wounded man came to dream of the possibility of a life of happiness with this woman, so tender, so sweet, and so active, whose fate had been so sad.  But the chances of war were too hard; Maxime returned to Paris, and after the conclusion of the war took part in the Communist rising, which Jean assisted to quell.  By an extraordinary chance, the two men, loving one another as brothers, came to be fighting on opposite sides, and it was the hand of Jean that was fated to inflict the fatal wound upon his friend.  He had killed the brother of the woman he loved, and henceforth there could be nothing between them, so he passed from her life, returning to assist in that cultivation of the soil which was needed to rejuvenate his country.  La Debacle.

He settled at Valqueyras, near Plassans, where he married Melanie Vial, the only daughter of a peasant farmer in easy circumstances, whose land he cultivated.  Calm and sensible, always at his plough, his wife simple and strong, he raised a large and healthy family to assist in replenishing the soil exhausted by the horrors of war.  Le Docteur Pascal.

MACQUART (MADAME JEAN), first wife of the preceding.  See Francoise Mouche.  La Terre.