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Monsieur Rigou," said Madame Soudry, in a mincing tone, "are women ever out of date?" "You may be right about Madame Sarcus; she doesn't paint before the glass," retorted Rigou, who was always disgusted by the exhibition of the Cochet's ancient charms. Madame Soudry, who thought she used only a "suspicion" of rouge, did not perceive the sarcasm and hastened to say:
"Four hundred families could get their living from it," said Courtecuisse. "If you want two acres for yourself you must help us to drive that cur out," remarked Gaubertin. At the very moment that Gaubertin was fulminating this sentence of excommunication, the worthy Sarcus was presenting his son-in-law Sibilet to the Comte de Montcornet.
Two years earlier his elder brother had been pronounced, through the influence of Soudry, Gaubertin, and Sarcus the rich, unfit for military service, on account of a pretended weakness in the muscles of the right arm; but as Jean-Louis had since wielded instruments of husbandry with remarkable force and skill, a good deal of talk on the subject had gone through the district.
After listening to the general's complaints the Comte de Casteran invited the bishop, the attorney-general, the colonel of the gendarmerie, counsellor Sarcus, and the general commanding the division to meet him the next day at breakfast.
Soulanges possessed a pharmaceutist named Vermut, a chemist, who was more of a chemist than Sarcus was a statesman, or Lupin a singer, or Gourdon the elder a scientist, or his brother a poet. Nevertheless, the leading society of Soulanges did not take much notice of Vermut, and the second-class society took none at all.
He governed Blangy through Rigou, Conches through the post-master, the despotic ruler of his own district. Gaubertin's influence was so great and powerful that even the investments and the savings of Rigou, Soudry, Gendrin, Guerbet, Lupin, even Sarcus the rich himself, were managed by his advice. The town of Ville-aux-Fayes believed implicitly in its mayor.
"We shall glean as we have always gleaned," repeated Vaudoyer. "Well, glean then! Monsieur Sarcus will decide whether you have the right to," said Rigou, seeming to promise the help of the justice of the peace. "We shall glean, and we shall do it in force, or Burgundy won't be Burgundy any longer," said Vaudoyer. "If the gendarmes have sabres we have scythes, and we'll see what comes of it!"
His known passion, in spite of his former liaison with Madame Sarcus, was for the wife of the under-sheriff of the municipal court, Madame Euphemie Plissoud, daughter of Wattebled the grocer, who reigned in the second-class society as Madame Soudry did in the first.
Under these circumstances the letter which Madame Soudry hastily dispatched brought Sibilet to Soulanges through a region of castles in the air. His father-in-law, Sarcus, whom the Soudrys advised to take steps in the interest of his daughter, had gone in the morning to see the general and to propose Adolphe for the vacant post.
"He loves his wife too well," said Lupin, reflectively. "He couldn't be got to that." "That's no obstacle," remarked Rigou; "but I don't know a single girl in the whole arrondissement who is capable of making a sinner of a saint. I have been looking out for one for the abbe." "What do you say to that handsome Gatienne Giboulard, of Auxerre, whom Sarcus, junior, is mad after?" asked Lupin.
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