United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Rigou's dinner, like his breakfast and supper, was always of choice delicacies, cooked with the art which distinguishes a priest's housekeeper from all other cooks. Madame Rigou made the butter herself twice a week. Cream was a concomitant of many sauces. The vegetables came at a jump, as it were, from their frames to the saucepan.
"My digestion is so troublesome!" he replied; "see! my color is almost as high as yours." Rigou's appearance on the terrace was the sign for an explosion of jovial greetings on the part of the assembled company. "And how may the lord of Blangy be?" said little Sarcus, justice of the peace. "Lord!" replied Rigou, bitterly, "I am not even cock of my own village now."
Rigou, the owner, had never been willing to part with La Bachelerie, as it was called, to the possessors of the estate, but he now took malicious pleasure in selling it, at fifty per cent discount, to Courtecuisse; which made the ex-keeper one of Rigou's numerous henchmen, for all he actually paid for the property was one thousand francs.
He wanted to succeed his Uncle Gendrin as counsellor whenever the latter should retire from the profession. Gendrin's only son was commissioner of mortgages. Soudry's son, who for the last two years had been prosecuting-attorney at the prefecture, was Gaubertin's henchman. The clever Madame Soudry had secured the future of her husband's son by marrying him to Rigou's only daughter.
"Every young girl over fiften years of age whom you may protect at the chateau is saved from that monster," said the abbe. "In trying to get possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought to satisfy both his lust and his vengeance. When I took Pere Niseron as sexton I told him what Rigou's intentions were.
"Pere Rigou's visits are pretty short," said Gourdon the poet to Madame Soudry. "They are pleasant, if they are short," she answered. "Like his own life," said the doctor; "his abuse of pleasures will cut that short." "So much the better," remarked Soudry, "my son will step into the property." "Did he bring you any news about Les Aigues?" asked the Abbe Taupin.
Acting by Rigou's advice, he played a part of great devotion to the general; and he was still assistant-mayor at the moment when, by the omnipotence of the historian, this drama begins. In the absence of the mayor, Rigou, necessarily a member of the district council, reigned supreme, and brought forward resolutions all injuriously affecting the general.
So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between Conches and Ville-aux-Fayes to Rigou's profit, all being willing to give it; whereas the labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend money in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were showered upon him simply because he was rich.
The ground-floor of the cafe, which stood at the angle of the square and the road, and was built in the style of Rigou's house, had three windows on the road and two on the square, the latter being separated by a glass door through which the house was entered.
"That's in Monsieur Rigou's newspaper," said Vaudoyer, who in his capacity of ex-field-keeper knew how to read and write; "I read it " In spite of his vinous tenderness, old Fourchon, like many of the lower classes whose faculties are stimulated by drunkenness, was following, with an intelligent eye and a keen ear, this curious discussion which a variety of asides rendered still more curious.
Word Of The Day