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Updated: June 26, 2025
It was not impossible that he would take a wife; consequently, the good people of Douai believed that Mademoiselle Claes would marry her great-uncle. The rumor of this marriage reached Pierquin, and brought him back in hot haste to the House of Claes. Great changes had taken place in the ideas of that clever speculator. For the last two years society in Douai had been divided into hostile camps.
Relying on his rather distant relationship and his constant habit of managing the business and sharing the secrets of the Claes family, sure of the esteem and friendship of the father, greatly assisted by the careless inattention of that servant of science who took no thought for the marriage of his daughter, and not suspecting that Marguerite could prefer another, Pierquin unguardedly enabled her to form a judgment on a suit in which there was no passion except that of self-interest, always odious to a young soul, and which he was not clever enough to conceal.
Later in life, Pierquin became celebrated by his reply to the commanding officer at Saint-Omer, who had invited him to be present at a military fete; the note ran as follows: "Monsieur Pierquin-Claes de Molina-Nourho, mayor of the city of Douai, chevalier of the Legion of honor, will have THAT of being present, etc."
And for a final and delightful detail a vine grew outside the house between the windows, whose tendrilled branches twined about the casements. "You are faithful to the old traditions, madame," said Pierquin, as he received a plate of that celebrated thyme soup in which the Dutch and Flemish cooks put little force-meat balls and dice of fried bread. "This is the Sunday soup of our forefathers.
Pierquin, with an appraising eye, stated that Madame Claes's possessions in her own right to use the notarial phrase might still be recovered, and ought to amount to nearly a million and a half of francs; basing this estimate partly on the forest of Waignies, whose timber, counting the full-grown trees, the saplings, the primeval growths, and the recent plantations, had immensely increased in value during the last twelve years, and partly on Balthazar's own property, of which enough remained to "cover" the claims of his children, if the liquidation of their mother's fortune did not yield sufficient to release him.
To prevent the sale of the House of Claes, Gabriel and Pierquin were paying the interest of the sums which their father had again borrowed on it. None of his children had the slightest influence upon the old man, who at seventy years of age displayed extraordinary energy in bending everything to his will, even in matters that were trivial.
"Ah, now!" cried Pierquin, looking at the clock, "we must read the marriage contracts. But they are not my affair, for the law forbids me to draw up such deeds between my relations and myself. Monsieur Raparlier is coming."
"Mademoiselle Felicie," said the elder, with her lips at her sister's ear. "I read your soul. Pierquin has been here often in my absence, and he has said sweet words to you, and you have listened to them." Felicie blushed. "Don't defend yourself, my angel," continued Marguerite, "it is so natural to love!
Love is not only a sentiment, it is an art. Some simple word, a trifling vigilance, a nothing, reveals to a woman the great, the divine artist who shall touch her heart and yet not blight it. The more Emmanuel was free to utter himself, the more charming were the expressions of his love. "I have tried to get here before Pierquin," he said to Marguerite one evening.
Breakfast over, the four children, the father and Pierquin went into the parlor, where Balthazar saw with some uneasiness a number of legal papers which the notary's clerk had laid upon a table, by which he was standing as if to assist his chief. The children all sat down, and Balthazar, astonished, remained standing before the fireplace.
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