“You have been a long time discovering her,” remarked Madame Tiphaine, who sat enthroned on a sofa by her fireside.
Madame Garceland, in a few words spoken in an undertone during a deal, revived the story of the Auffray property. The notary related the innkeeper’s iniquities.
“Where is the poor Little thing?” asked the President politely.
“In Brittany,” said Rogron.
“But Brittany is a wide word!” remarked Monsieur Lesourd, the public prosecutor.
“Her grandfather and grandmother wrote to us.—When was it, my dear?” asked Rogron.
Sylvie, absorbed in asking Madame Garceland where she had bought the stuff for her dress, did not foresee the effect of her answer, and said, “Before we sold our business.”
“And you answered three days ago. Mademoiselle Sylvie!” exclaimed the notary.
Sylvie turned as red as the hottest coals in the fire.
“We wrote to the Institution of Saint-Jacques,” replied Rogron.
“There is a sort of asylum there for old people,” said a lawyer, who had been supernumerary judge at Mantes. “But she cannot be there, for they only take in persons who are past sixty.”
“She is there with her grandmother Lorrain,” said Rogron.
“She had a little money, the eight thousand francs left her by your father—no, I mean your grandfather,” said the notary, blundering intentionally.
“Indeed!” said Rogron, looking stupid, and not understanding this sarcasm.
“Then you knew nothing of your first cousin’s fortune or position?” asked the President.
“If Monsieur Rogron had known it, he would not have left her in a place which is no more than a respectable workhouse,” said the judge severely. “I remember now that a house belonging to Monsieur and Madame Lorrain was sold at Nantes under an execution; and Mademoiselle Lorrain lost her claims, for I was the commissioner in charge.”
The notary spoke of Colonel Lorrain, who, if he were alive, would indeed be astonished to think of his child being in an institution like that of Saint-Jacques. The Rogrons presently withdrew, thinking the world very spiteful. Sylvie perceived that her news had had no success; she had ruined herself in everybody’s opinion; henceforth she had no hope of making her way in the higher society of Provins.
From that day the Rogrons no longer dissembled their hatred of the great citizen families of Provins, and of all their adherents. The brother now repeated all the Liberal fables which Lawyer Vinet and Colonel Gouraud had crammed him with about the Tiphaines, the Guenées, the Garcelands, the Guépins, and the Julliards.
“I tell you what, Sylvie, I don’t see why Madame Tiphaine should turn a cold shoulder on the Rue Saint-Denis: the best of her beauty was made there. Madame Roguin, her mother, is a cousin of the Guillaumes of the Cat and Racket, who gave over their business to their son-in-law Joseph Lebas. Her father is that notary, that Roguin, who failed in 1819, and ruined the Birotteaus. So Madame Tiphaine’s money is stolen wealth; for what is a notary’s wife who takes her own settlement out of the fire and allows her husband to become a fraudulent bankrupt. A pretty thing indeed! Ah! I understand! She got her daughter married to live here at Provins through her connections with the banker du Tillet. And these people are proud!—Well! However, that is what the world is!”
On the day when Denis Rogron and his sister Sylvie thus broke out in abuse of the clique, they had, without knowing it, become persons of importance, and were on the highroad to having some society; their drawing-room was on the point of becoming a centre of interests which only needed a stage. The retired haberdasher assumed historical and political dignity, for, still without knowing it, he gave strength and unity to the hitherto unstable elements of the Liberal party at Provins. And this was the way of it: The early career of the Rogrons had been anxiously observed by Colonel Gouraud and the advocate Vinet, who had been thrown together by their isolation and their agreement of ideas. These two men professed equal patriotism, and for the same reasons—they wanted to acquire importance. But though they were anxious to be leaders, they lacked followers. The Liberals of Provins comprised an old soldier who sold lemonade; an innkeeper; Monsieur Cournant, a notary, Monsieur Auffray’s rival; Monsieur Néraud, a physician, Doctor Martener’s rival; and some independent persons, farmers scattered about the neighborhood, and holders of national stock. The Colonel and the lawyer, glad to attract an idiot whose money might help them in their manoeuvres, who would support their subscriptions, who, in some cases, would take the bull by the horns, and whose house would be useful as a town-hall for the party, took advantage of the Rogrons’ hostility towards the aristocrats of the place. The Colonel, the lawyer, and Rogron had a slight bond in their joint subscription to the Constitutionnel; it would not be difficult for the Colonel to make a Liberal of the ex-haberdasher, though Rogron knew so little of political history that he had not heard of the exploits of Sergeant Mercier; he thought he was a friend and brother.
The impending arrival of Pierrette hastened the hatching of certain covetous dreams to which the ignorance and folly of the old bachelor and old maid had given rise. The Colonel, seeing that Sylvie had lost all chance of getting her foot into the circle of the Tiphaines, had an idea. Old soldiers have seen so many horrors in so many lands, so many naked corpses grimacing hideously on so many battlefields, that an ugly face has no terrors for them, so the Colonel took steady aim at the old maid’s fortune. This officer, a short, fat man, wore rings in his ears, which were already graced by bushy tufts of hair. His floating gray whiskers were such as in 1799 had been called “fins.” His large, good-natured, red face was somewhat frostbitten, as were those of all who escaped at the Beresina. His
