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Updated: June 19, 2025
He recollected having heard Claude name the old one Mademoiselle Saget when they were in the Rue Pirouette; and he made up his mind to question her when she should have parted from her tall withered acquaintance. "And how's your niece?" Mademoiselle Saget now asked. "Oh, La Sarriette does as she likes," Madame Lecoeur replied in a bitter tone.
That was "politics," she said, with the superior air of one who knew what she was talking about. Madame Lecoeur felt quite ill. She already saw Florent and his accomplices hiding in the cellars, and rushing out during the night to set the markets in flames and sack Paris. "Ah! by the way," suddenly exclaimed the old maid, "now I think of it, there's all that money of old Gradelle's!
"Why, her letters to him have been found, a whole pile of letters, in which she asks for money, ten and twenty francs at a time. There's no doubt at all about it. I'm quite certain in my own mind that they killed the husband between them." La Sarriette and Madame Lecoeur were convinced; but they were beginning to get very impatient.
"Paws off, little one!" exclaimed Madame Lecoeur in a hoarse voice. As she stood there in the reflection of the gold, she looked yellower than ever her face discoloured by biliousness, her eyes glowing feverishly from the liver complaint which was secretly undermining her.
"Oh, she knows very well what she's about," exclaimed Madame Lecoeur, whom these attentions to Gavard somewhat alarmed. Mademoiselle Saget felt bound to defend her friend. "Oh, really, you are quite mistaken," said she. "Madame Leonce is much above her position; she is quite a lady. If she wanted to enrich herself at Monsieur Gavard's expense, she might easily have done so long ago.
This cut her off from her sources of information; and sometimes she was altogether ignorant of what was happening. She shed tears of rage, and in one such moment of anger she bluntly said to La Sarriette and Madame Lecoeur: "You needn't give me any more hints: I'll settle your Gavard's hash for him now that I will!" The two women were rather startled, but refrained from all protestation.
It was trying work, and she heaved a sigh at each fresh effort. "Mademoiselle Saget wants to speak to you, aunt," said La Sarriette. Madame Lecoeur stopped her work, and pulled her cap over her hair with her greasy fingers, seemingly quite careless of staining it. "I've nearly finished. Ask her to wait a moment," she said. "She's got something very particular to tell you," continued La Sarriette.
And as they were just going into Monsieur Lebigre's to drink a drop of vermouth together he called his attention to three women standing in the covered way between the fish and poultry pavilions. "They're cackling together!" he said with an envious air. The markets were growing empty, and Mademoiselle Saget, Madame Lecoeur, and La Sarriette alone lingered on the edge of the footway.
However, La Sarriette and Madame Lecoeur rushed up to him and anxiously inquired what was the matter; and the butter dealer began to cry, while La Sarriette embraced her uncle, manifesting the deepest emotion. As Gavard held her clasped in his arms, he slipped a key into her hand, and whispered in her ear: "Take everything, and burn the papers."
Lisa, who was already irritated, played impatiently with the handles of the knives, and told her that the galantine was truffled, and that she could only include it in an "assortment" at three francs the pound. Madame Lecoeur, however, continued to pry into the dishes, trying to find something else to ask for. When the "assortment" was weighed she made Lisa add some jelly and gherkins to it.
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