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"Little Flore I am sure she is worthy of the name will sleep there in future. To-morrow, we'll send for a shoemaker and a dressmaker. Put another plate on the table; she shall keep us company." That evening, all Issoudun could talk of nothing else than the sudden appearance of the little "rabouilleuse" in Doctor Rouget's house.
When he heard the last part of this speech, the doctor, struck by the word "innocent," made a sign to the uncle and took him out into the courtyard and from thence to the garden; leaving the Rabouilleuse at the table with Fanchette and Jean-Jacques, who immediately questioned her, and to whom she naively related her meeting with the doctor.
Flore, acting by Max's advice, pretended that Monsieur was too feeble to take walks, and that he ought, at his age, to have a carriage. At the close of the week, all Issoudun was amazed to learn that the old man had gone to Bourges to buy a carriage, a step which the Knights of Idleness regarded as favorable to the Rabouilleuse.
"What are we going to do?" was the first question of each as he arrived. "I think," said Francois, "that Max means merely to give us a supper." "No; matters are very serious for him, and for the Rabouilleuse: no doubt, he has concocted some scheme against the Parisians." "It would be a good joke to drive them away."
"There are seven or eight very large ones up in the garret, which were kept on account of the frames," said Gilet. "Let me see them!" cried the artist; and Max took him upstairs. Joseph came down wildly enthusiastic. Max whispered a word to the Rabouilleuse, who took the old man into the embrasure of a window, where Joseph heard her say in a low voice, but still so that he could hear the words:
That date may indicate, to a perspicacious observer, the epoch at which Flore Brazier ceased to be an honest girl. The Rabouilleuse, clever enough to foresee Fanchette's probable defection, there is nothing like the exercise of power for teaching policy, was already resolved to do without a servant.
Thus the Rabouilleuse was an object of envy to all the young peasant-girls within a circuit of ten miles, although her conduct, from a religious point of view, was supremely reprehensible.
"Whom do you mean by Madame?" asked old Hochon. "That's what they call the Rabouilleuse over there," answered Gritte. "She left the salon and all Monsieur Rouget's part of the house in a pitiable state; but since yesterday the rooms have been made to look like what they were before Monsieur Maxence went to live there. You can see your face on the floors.
While the innocent fellow was vowing, by way of consolation, never to return to Issoudun, Max was preparing a horrible outrage for his sensitive spirit. The Rabouilleuse came in tears to her dear Max, while Kouski and the Vedie told the assembled crowd that the captain was in a fair way to die. The news brought nearly two hundred persons in groups about the place Saint-Jean and the two Narettes.
"I am Doctor Rouget," said that individual; "and as you are the guardian of the child, bring her to my house, in the place Saint-Jean. It will not be a bad day's work for you; nor for her, either." Without waiting for an answer, and sure that Uncle Brazier would soon appear with his pretty "rabouilleuse," Doctor Rouget set spurs to his horse and returned to Issoudun.
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