United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Get a fresh lemon, Aglae," said Pere Socquard, "and go and rinse that glass yourself." "You did right to send her away," whispered Rigou, "or she might have been hurt"; and he glanced significantly at the hand with which Marie grasped a stool she had caught up to throw at Aglae's head.
At this period the sacred respect felt for sugar under the Emperor was not yet dispelled in the town of Soulanges, and Aglae Socquard boldly served three bits of it of the size of hazel-nuts to a foreign merchant who had rashly asked for the literary beverage.
The tavern-keeper judged it prudent to listen outside, as Rigou was doing; the father was inclined to enter and declare that Bonnebault, possessed of admirable qualities in the eyes of a tavern-keeper, had none at all as son-in-law to one of the notables of Soulanges. And yet Pere Socquard had received but few offers for his daughter.
"Do you mean that Burgundy will always be the land of fisticuffs?" asked Pere Guerbet. "That's not ill said," remarked the abbe; "not at all; in fact it's almost an exact history of our country." "I don't know anything about the history of France," blurted Soudry; "and before I try to learn it, it is more important to me to know why old Rigou has gone into the Cafe de la Paix with Socquard."
The father of Mam Tonsard has a right to do so; and isn't that better than spending your silver at Socquard's?" "What a shame it is that you have been fifteen years playing for people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how Socquard cooks his wine, you who are so shrewd!" said his daughter; "and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon get as rich as Rigou."
Socquard stepped noiselessly, for he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost so little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the provinces. "If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said Rigou; "it is a warm evening." "Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.
These details, together with the deep mystery with which Socquard manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other reasons for their renown.
And Urbain, a former trooper, who could not get into the gendarmerie and had therefore taken service with Soudry, went round the house to open the gates of the courtyard. Socquard, a famous personage throughout the valley, was treated, as you see, with very little ceremony by the valet.
The fourth side looks on a courtyard which separates the Soudrys from the adjoining house occupied by a grocer named Wattebled, a man of the SECOND-CLASS society of Soulanges, father of the beautiful Madame Plissoud, of whom we shall presently have occasion to speak. All little towns have a renowned beauty, just as they have a Socquard and a Cafe de la Paix.
Like Tonsard, whose renown released him from the necessity of giving proofs of his ferocity, in fact, like all other men who are backed by public opinion of one kind or another, Socquard never displayed his extraordinary muscular force unless asked to do so by friends. He now took the horse as the usurer drew up at the steps of the portico.
Word Of The Day