Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
"You needn't get angry, Max," said young Goddet; "didn't we agree to talk freely to each other at Mere Cognette's? Shouldn't we all be mortal enemies if we remembered outside what is said, or thought, or done here? All the town calls Flore Brazier the Rabouilleuse; and if Francois did happen to let the nickname slip out, is that a crime against the Order of Idleness?"
The reading of the letter acted like balm; after a few quiverings, Agathe subsided into the depression which always follows such attacks. Later, when Monsieur Goddet returned to his patient he found her regretting that she had ever quitted Paris. "Well," said Madame Hochon to Monsieur Goddet, "how is Monsieur Gilet?" "His wound, though serious, is not mortal," replied the doctor.
For five days after this, nothing was talked of in Issoudun but the tale of the Spaniard's barrow; it was even fated to travel abroad, as Goddet remarked, for it went the round of Berry, where the speeches of Fario and Max were repeated, and at the end of a week the affair, greatly to the Spaniard's satisfaction, was still the talk of the three departments and the subject of endless gossip.
"I know," said Goddet, "where to find an animal that's worth forty rats, himself alone." "What's that?" "A squirrel." "I offer a little monkey," said one of the younger members, "he'll make himself drunk on wheat." "Bad, very bad!" exclaimed Max, "it would show who put the beasts there."
At the old miser's, as everywhere else in the provinces, the household was early astir. The few words uttered by Max had roused the suspicions of Monsieur Goddet, and he called to the woman, "Gritte, is Monsieur Joseph Bridau in bed?" "Bless me!" she said, "he went out at half-past four. I don't know what ailed him; he walked up and down his room all night."
Besides, if the Bridaus succeed, and Flore has nothing but what she stands in, I should be satisfied; do you understand that? I love her enough to prefer her to Mademoiselle Fichet, if Mademoiselle Fichet would have me." Mademoiselle Fichet was the richest heiress in Issoudun, and the hand of the daughter counted for much in the reported passion of the younger Goddet for the mother.
Every movement betrayed intelligence; born with grace and charm, like nearly all the children of love, the noble blood of his real father came out in him. "Don't you know, Max," cried the son of a former surgeon-major named Goddet now the best doctor in the town from the other end of the table, "that Madame Hochon's goddaughter is the sister of Rouget?
You have been the cause of a great misfortune, and you must now repair it. Religion is religion: submit, resign yourself, and that will quiet you better than my drugs. Above all, resolve to stay here and take care of your master: forget and forgive, that's Christianity." Goddet has promised to keep the Rabouilleuse three months in her bed.
If I am able to throw three hundred francs a month to the dogs, and treat you to suppers, as I do to-night, and lend money to all of you, you think I get the gold out of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier's purse? "Yes, ten thousand times yes! Yes, Mademoiselle Brazier is aiming straight for the old man's property." "She gets it from father to son," observed Goddet, in his corner.
If people, following the use and wont of the provinces, began by laughing at this quasi-marriage, they ended by praising Flore for devoting herself to the poor fellow. We now see how it was that Flore Brazier obtained the management of the Rouget household, from father to son, as young Goddet had said. It is desirable to sketch the history of that management for the edification of old bachelors.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking