Vinet left the Court, and went to the chief leaders of his party to explain the position of Rogron, who had never given his little cousin a finger-flip, and whom the tribunal had treated, as he declared, less as Pierrette’s guardian than as the chief voter in Provins.
To hear him, the Tiphaines were making much ado about nothing. The mountain would bring forth a mouse. Sylvie, an eminently religious and well-conducted person, had detected an intrigue between her brother’s ward and a carpenter’s boy, a Breton named Brigaut. The young rascal knew very well that the girl would have a fortune from her grandmother, and wanted to tamper with her. … Vinet to talk of tampering! … Mademoiselle Rogron, who had kept the letters in which this little slut’s wickedness was made clear, was not so much to blame as the Tiphaines tried to make her seem. Even if she had been betrayed into violence to obtain a letter, which could easily be accounted for by the irritation produced in her by Breton obstinacy, in what was Rogron to blame?
The lawyer thus made the action a party matter, and contrived to give it political color. And so, from that evening, there were differences of opinion on the question.
“If you hear but one bell, you hear but one note,” said the wise-heads. “Have you heard what Vinet has to say? He explains the case very well.”
Frappier’s house was regarded as unsuitable for Pierrette on account of the noise, which would cause her much pain in the head. Her removal from thence to her appointed guardian’s house was as desirable from a medical as from a legal point of view. This business was effected with the utmost care, and calculated to make a great sensation. Pierrette was placed on a stretcher with many mattresses, carried by two men, escorted by a Gray Sister holding in her hand a bottle of ether, followed by her grandmother, Brigaut, Madame Auffray, and her maid. The people stood at the windows and in the doors to see the little procession pass. No doubt the state in which Pierrette was seen and her deathlike pallor gave immense support to the party adverse to the Rogrons. The Auffrays were bent on showing to all the town how right the President had been in pronouncing his injunction. Pierrette and her grandmother were established on the second floor of Monsieur Auffray’s house. The notary and his wife lavished on them the generosity of the amplest hospitality; they made a display of it. Pierrette was nursed by her grandmother, and Monsieur Martener came to see her again the same evening, with the surgeon.
From that evening dated much exaggeration on both sides. The Rogrons’ room was crowded. Vinet had worked up the Liberal faction in the matter. The two Chargeboeuf ladies dined with the Rogrons, for the marriage contract was to be signed forthwith. Vinet had had the banns put up at the Mairie that morning. He treated the business of Pierrette as a mere trifle. If the Court of Provins could not judge it dispassionately, the superior Court would judge of the facts, said he, and the Auffrays would think twice before rushing into such an action. Then the connection between the Rogrons and the Chargeboeufs was of immense weight with certain people. To them the Rogrons were as white as snow, and Pierrette an excessively wicked little girl whom they had cherished in their bosom.
In Madame Tiphaine’s drawing-room vengeance was taken on the horrible scandals the Vinet party had promulgated for the last two years. The Rogrons were monsters, and the guardian would find himself in the Criminal Court. In the Square, Pierrette was perfectly well; in the upper town, she must infallibly die; at the Rogrons’, she had a few scratches on her hand; at Madame Tiphaine’s, she had her fingers smashed; one would have to be cut off.
Next day the Courrier de Provins had an extremely clever article, well written, a masterpiece of innuendo mixed up with legal demurs, which placed the Rogrons above suspicion. The Ruche, which came out two days later, could not reply without risk of libel; but it said that in a ease like the present, the best thing was to leave justice to take its course.
The family council was constituted by the Justice of the Peace of the Provins district, as the legal President, in the first place, of Rogron and the two Auffrays, Pierrette’s next-of-kin; then of Monsieur Ciprey, a nephew of Pierrette’s maternal grandmother. He added to these Monsieur Habert, the young girl’s director, and Colonel Gouraud, who had always given himself out to be a comrade of her father’s, Colonel Lorrain. The Justice’s impartiality was highly applauded in including in this family council Monsieur Habert and the Colonel, whom all the town regarded as great friends of the Rogrons. In the difficult position in which he found himself, Rogron begged to be allowed the support of Maître Vinet on the occasion. By this manoeuvre, evidently suggested by Vinet, he succeeded in postponing the meeting of the family council till the end of December.
At that date the President and his wife were in Paris, living with Madame Roguin, in consequence of the sitting of the Chambers. Thus the Ministerial party at Provins was bereft of its head. Vinet had already quietly made friends with the worthy examining judge, Monsieur Desfondrilles, in case the business should assume the penal or criminal aspect that Tiphaine had endeavored to give it.
For three hours Vinet addressed the family council; he proved an intrigue between Brigaut and Pierrette, to justify Mademoiselle Rogron’s severity; he pointed out how natural it was that the guardian should have left his ward under the control of a woman; he dwelt on his client’s noninterference in the mode of Pierrette’s education as conducted
