“You have to deal with two very sharp customers. In all my life I never met with so sly a fox as that soldier. War is the making of these youths, it would seem. Joseph walked into the trap. He appeared arm in arm with la Rabouilleuse. They have shut his mouth, no doubt, with wine, some rubbishy pictures, and four thousand francs. Your artist has not cost Maxence dear.”
The cunning old man had laid down a line of conduct for his wife’s goddaughter, instructing her to seem to agree with Maxence and cajole Flore, so as to become to some extent familiar with her, and obtain a few minutes’ talk alone with her brother. Madame Bridau was very well received by Jean-Jacques, tutored by Flore. The old man was in bed, ill from the excesses of the previous evening. As Agathe could not attack him on serious questions at the very first moment, Max had thought it correct and handsome to leave the brother and sister to themselves. He had calculated judiciously. Poor Agathe found her brother so ill that she would not deprive him of Mademoiselle Brazier’s attentions.
“Besides,” she said to the old man, “I should wish to know the person to whom I am indebted for my brother’s happiness.”
These words gave the poor fellow evident pleasure; he rang and sent for Madame Brazier. Flore, as may be supposed, was not far off. The female antagonists exchanged salutes. La Rabouilleuse displayed the most obsequious care, the tenderest attentions; she thought monsieur’s head was too low, and rearranged the pillows; she was like a wife of yesterday. And the old man overflowed with emotion.
“We owe you much gratitude, mademoiselle,” said Agathe, “for all the marks of attachment you have so long given to my brother, and for the care with which you provide for his happiness.”
“It is very true, my dear Agathe,” said the old man, “she made me first know happiness; and she is a woman full of admirable qualities.”
“And so, brother, you cannot reward her too highly; you ought to have made her your wife. Yes! I am too religious a woman not to wish that I might see you obey the precepts of religion. You would both be the happier if you were not at war with law and morality. I came here, my dear brother, to appeal for help in very great trouble; but do not imagine that we intended to make the slightest remarks on the way in which you may dispose of your fortune.”
“Madame,” said Flore, “we know that your father was unjust to you. Your brother can tell you,” she added, staring hard at her victim, “that the only quarrels we have ever had, he and I, have been about you. I tell monsieur that he owes you part of the fortune of which you were robbed by my poor benefactor—for he was my benefactor, your father was,” and she put on a tearful voice, “and I shall never forget him—but your brother, madame, has listened to reason—”
“Yes,” said old Rouget, “when I make my will, you will not be forgotten—”
“We will not talk of that, brother; you do not know yet what my character is—”
From these beginnings the upshot of this first visit may be imagined. Rouget invited his sister to dinner for the next day but one.
During these three days the Knights of Idlesse caught an enormous number of rats, mice, and field-mice, which were turned out starving one fine night among the seed-corn, to the number of four hundred and thirty-six, among them many mothers with young. Not satisfied with having quartered these pensioners on Fario, the Knights made some holes in the roof of the old chapel, and put in ten pigeons brought from ten different farmsteads. The creatures held high festival, with all the greater freedom because Fario’s boy was led away by another young rascal, with whom he drank from morning till night, taking no care whatever of his master’s merchandise.
Madame Bridau, in opposition to old Hochon’s opinion, believed that her brother had not yet made his will; she purposed asking him what his intentions were with regard to Mademoiselle Brazier, on the first opportunity she might find of taking a walk with him alone; for Max and Flore constantly beguiled her with this hope, which was always deceived.
Though the Knights of the Order all tried to hit on a scheme for putting the two Parisians to flight, they devised nothing but impossible follies.
Hence at the end of a week, half of the time the Bridaus were to spend in Issoudun, they were no further forward than on the first day.
“Your lawyer does not know what a country town is,” said old Hochon to Madame Bridau. “What you came here to do cannot be done in fourteen days, nor in fourteen months. You would have to be constantly with your brother, and instil into him some ideas of religion. You can only undermine the fortress guarded by Flore and Maxence by sapping it through a priest. That is my opinion, and it is high time you should act on it.”
“You have strange ideas of the priesthood,” said Madame Hochon to her husband.
“Oh!” cried the old man. “There you are, you godly people!”
“God will not bless any endeavor that is based on sacrilege,” said Madame Bridau. “To make use of religion for such a—Oh! We should be worse than Flore!”
This conversation took place at breakfast, and François and Baruch both listened with open ears.
“Sacrilege!” cried old Hochon. “But if some good Abbé, as clever as some I have known, understood the predicament in which you stand, he would not regard it as sacrilege to lead home to God your brother’s erring soul, to bring him to true repentance for his sins, to persuade
