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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Neither, monsieur," replied Madame Fournichon; "only the place is new, and we choose our customers." "Oh! very well." "For example," continued she, "for a person like your lordship, we would send away a dozen." "Thanks, my kind hostess." "Will monsieur taste the wine?" asked M. Fournichon. "Will monsieur visit the rooms?" added his wife. "Both, if you please." Fournichon descended to the cellar.
A few minutes after a cry was heard in the street of "Old iron! who wants to sell old iron?" Madame Fournichon ran to the door, while M. Fournichon placed the supper on the table, and to judge by its reception it must have been exquisite. As his wife did not return, however, the host asked a servant what she was doing. "Oh, master," he replied, "she is selling all your old iron for new money."
Thus, when the young man reached the door, he found Dame Fournichon on the threshold waiting for her customers with a smile, which made her resemble a mythological goddess painted by a Flemish painter, and in her large white hands she held a golden crown, which another hand, whiter and more delicate, had slipped in, in passing. She stood before the door, so as to bar Ernanton's passage.
Maline, aloud, for whom this revelation was oil instead of water thrown on the fire, "that is not possible." "And why so?" "Oh! because Ernanton is a model of chastity and a melange of all the virtues. No, you must be wrong, Madame Fournichon; it cannot be Ernanton who is shut in there."
De Loignac made them all pass before him, counting them as they went, and then conducted them to the place where three large boats were waiting for them. As soon as the valet of Pertinax heard the words of Madame Fournichon, he ran after the dealer, but as it was night and he was doubtless in a hurry, he had gone some little way and Samuel was obliged to call to him.
Madame Fournichon replied in an equally audible voice, "And what a handsome cavalier!" The officer, who did not appear insensible to flattery, raised his head and looked first at the host and hostess and then at the hotel. Fournichon ran rapidly downstairs and appeared at the door. "Is the house empty?" asked the officer.
The captain then descended the stall's and rode off, leaving the Fournichons delighted with their thirty livres in advance. "Decidedly," said the host, "the sign has brought us good fortune." We dare not affirm that Dame Fournichon was as discreet as she had promised to be, for she interrogated the first soldier whom she saw pass as to the name of the captain who had conducted the review.
M. Fournichon, however, stuck to his sign, and replied that he preferred fighting men, and that one of them drank as much as six lovers.
Indeed, the cupids with which the interior was decorated had been ornamented with mustaches in charcoal by the habitues; and Dame Fournichon, the landlady, always affirmed that the sign had brought them ill-luck, and that had her wishes been attended to, and the painting represented more pleasing things, such as the rose-tree of love surrounded by flaming hearts, all tender couples would have flocked to them.
"I hope not my cuirass and arms," said he, running to the door. "No," said De Loignac, "it is forbidden to buy arms." Madame Fournichon entered triumphantly. "You have not been selling my arms?" cried her husband. "Yes, I have." "I will not have them sold." "Bah! in time of peace; and I have got ten crowns instead of an old cuirass." "Ten crowns!
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