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Pierrette's mother was a Demoiselle Auffray of Provins, half-sister by the father's side of Madame Rogron, mother of the present owners of the house. Monsieur Auffray, her husband, had married at the age of eighteen; his second marriage took place when he was nearly sixty-nine. By the first, he had an only daughter, very plain, who was married at sixteen to an innkeeper of Provins named Rogron.
The new name, however, brought no fresh subscribers, and the Journal was dragging on a dreary existence when M. Auffray, the printer, bought it, and engaged his former schoolfellow, François Buloz, as editor of the new series of the Revue des Deux Mondes. His yearly salary was twelve hundred francs, and two francs for every subscriber.
"You have been rather long in discovering her," said Madame Tiphaine, with a touch of sarcasm. A few words said in a low voice by Madame Garceland, while the cards were being dealt, recalled to the minds of those who heard her the shameful conduct of old Rogron about the Auffray property; the notary explained the iniquity. "Where is the little girl now?" asked Monsieur Tiphaine, politely.
At four o'clock, after the usual rising of the court, president Tiphaine again took his seat, when Madame Lorrain, accompanied by Monsieur Auffray and Brigaut and a crowd of interested persons, entered the court-room. Vinet was alone. This contrast struck the minds of those present.
The Family Council was selected by the juge de paix of the canton of Provins, and consisted of Rogron and the two Messieurs Auffray, the nearest relatives, and Monsieur Ciprey, nephew of Pierrette's maternal grandmother. To these were joined Monsieur Habert, Pierrette's confessor, and Colonel Gouraud, who had always professed himself a comrade and friend of her father, Colonel Lorrain.
The heroism with which the poor lad personally performed, like the grandmother, the last offices for Pierrette made him a sharer in the awful scene which crowned the tyranny of the Rogrons. Brigaut and the plumber reached the house of Monsieur Auffray just in time to decide by their own main force an infamous and shocking judicial question.
Monsieur Martener, together with the Auffray family, were soon charmed by the beauty of Pierrette's nature and the character of her old grandmother, whose feelings, ideas, and ways bore the stamp of Roman antiquity, this matron of the Marais was like a woman in Plutarch. Doctor Martener struggled bravely with death, which already grasped its prey.
Monsieur Auffray rose, as surrogate-guardian, and requested to be heard.
She was served by all with a sort of fanaticism; she was felt to be so gentle, so tender, so loving. Madame Martener sent her piano to her sister Madame Auffray, thinking to amuse Pierrette who was passionately fond of music. It was a poem to watch her listening to a theme of Weber, or Beethoven, or Herold, her eyes raised, her lips silent, regretting no doubt the life escaping her.
On the other side of the corridor is the dining-room, which communicates by folding-doors with a salon of equal size, the windows of which look on the garden." "Dear me, is there no ante-chamber?" asked Madame Auffray. "The corridor, full of draughts, answers for an ante-chamber," replied Madame Tiphaine.
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