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"The king will be his cousin, won't he?" said Nanon, la Grande Nanon, Madame Cornoiller, bourgeoise of Saumur, as she listened to her mistress, who was recounting the honors to which she was called. He died eight days after his election as deputy of Saumur.
"Monsieur," she said, when Grandet returned the second time, after locking the fruit-garden, "won't you have the pot-au-feu put on once or twice a week on account of your nephew?" "Yes." "Am I to go to the butcher's?" "Certainly not. We will make the broth of fowls; the farmers will bring them. I shall tell Cornoiller to shoot some crows; they make the best soup in the world."
When Grandet had gone to bed Nanon came softly to Eugenie's room in her stockinged feet and showed her a pate baked in a saucepan. "See, mademoiselle," said the good soul, "Cornoiller gave me a hare. You eat so little that this pate will last you full a week; in such frosty weather it won't spoil. You sha'n't live on dry bread, I'm determined; it isn't wholesome."
The sun had just reached the angle of the ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a caprice of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though Cornoiller often remarked to his wife that "it would fall and crush somebody one of these days." At this moment the postman knocked, and gave a letter to Madame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying out: "Mademoiselle, a letter!"
Among her first acts she had settled an annuity of twelve hundred francs on Nanon, who, already possessed of six hundred more, became a rich and enviable match. In less than a month that good soul passed from single to wedded life under the protection of Antoine Cornoiller, who was appointed keeper of all Mademoiselle Grandet's estates.
"Take care you don't knock over the candlestick." The scene was lighted by a single candle placed between two rails of the staircase. "Cornoiller," said Grandet to his keeper in partibus, "have you brought your pistols?" "No, monsieur. Mercy! what's there to fear for your copper sous?" "Oh! nothing," said Pere Grandet.
"She is rich, and that fellow Cornoiller has done a good thing for himself," said a third man. When she came forth from the old house on her way to the parish church, Nanon, who was loved by all the neighborhood, received many compliments as she walked down the tortuous street. Eugenie had given her three dozen silver forks and spoons as a wedding present.
"Here, Cornoiller," she said, slipping ten francs into the man's hand, "some day we will reward your services." Cornoiller could say nothing, so he went away. "Madame," said Nanon, who had put on her black coif and taken her basket, "I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it'll go fast enough somehow." "Have a good dinner, Nanon; my cousin will come down," said Eugenie.
She took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master; she ruled over two servants, a cook, and a maid whose business it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle's dresses. Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff.
Cornoiller, amazed at such magnificence, spoke of his mistress with tears in his eyes; he would willingly have been hacked in pieces in her behalf. Madame Cornoiller, appointed housekeeper to Mademoiselle Grandet, got as much happiness out of her new position as she did from the possession of a husband.
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