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So, from 1817, the household of the old bachelor was made up of five persons, three of whom were masters, and the expenses advanced to about eight thousand francs a year. At the time when Madame Bridau returned to Issoudun to save as Maitre Desroches expressed it an inheritance that was seriously threatened, Jean-Jacques Rouget had reached by degrees a condition that was semi-vegetative.
When a family expatriates itself, the natives of a place as attractive as Issoudun have a right to inquire into the reasons of so surprising a step. It was said by certain sharp tongues that Doctor Rouget, a vindictive man, had been heard to exclaim that Monsieur Lousteau should die by his hand. Uttered by a physician, this declaration had the force of a cannon-ball.
Desire, which usually sets free the tongue, only petrified his powers of speech. Thus it happened that Jean-Jacques Rouget was solitary and sought solitude because there alone he was at his ease. The doctor had seen, too late for remedy, the havoc wrought in his son's life by a temperament and a character of this kind.
The Abbé Radiguet came down with his breviary, made a profound remark which abruptly calmed the people, and then threw them into consternation. "They will, perhaps, drink it all, these, too," he murmured with a melancholy air. At sea, between the "Baleine" and the "Zéphir," a violent quarrel broke out. Rouget called La Queue a thief, while the latter called Rouget a good-for-nothing.
During this address, Flore shook like a person with the ague. "Kill Max ?" she said, gazing at Philippe in the moonlight. "Come, here's my uncle." Old Rouget, turning a deaf ear to Monsieur Hochon's remonstrances, now came out into the street, and took Flore by the hand, as a miser might have grasped his treasure; he drew her back to the house and into his own room and shut the door.
"I shall sleep in the room adjoining Gilet's apartment, if my uncle consents." "What will come of all this?" cried the terrified old man. "Mademoiselle Flore Brazier is coming, gentle as a paschal lamb," replied Monsieur Hochon. "God grant it!" exclaimed Rouget, wiping his eyes.
"Madame said like this," Kouski replied, " that I was to tell monsieur she had taken twenty thousand francs in gold from his drawer, thinking that monsieur wouldn't refuse her that amount as wages for the last twenty-two years." "Wages?" exclaimed Rouget. "Yes," replied Kouski. "Ah! I shall never come back," she said to Vedie as she drove away.
After breakfast, on the morning succeeding the marriage, Philippe took Madame Rouget by the arm when his uncle rose from table and went upstairs to dress, for the pair had come down, the one in her morning-robe, and the other in his dressing-gown. "My dear aunt," said the colonel, leading her into the recess of a window, "you now belong to the family. Thanks to me, the law has tied the knot.
The woman brought a formal refusal from Max, who requested Mademoiselle Brazier to send his things to the hotel de la Poste. "Will you allow me to take them to him?" she said to Jean-Jacques Rouget. "Yes, but will you come back?" said the old man. "If Mademoiselle is not back by midday, you will give me a power of attorney to attend to your property," said Philippe, looking at Flore.
Struck with the words "concubine" and "slut," which the pen of a septuagenarian as pious as she was respectable had used to designate the woman now in process of getting hold of Jean-Jacques Rouget's property, struck also with the word "imbecile" applied to Rouget himself, she began to ask herself how, by her presence at Issoudun, she was to save the inheritance.
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