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Updated: June 22, 2025
The next day Madame Cardinal intended to consult Cerizet, in view of the fact that he was a clerk in the office of the justice-of-peace; but, before reaching his lair in the rue des Poules, she was met by the porter of a house in which an uncle of hers, a certain Toupillier, was living, who told her that the old man hadn't probably two days to live, being then in the last extremity.
"Let me alone!" shouted Toupillier, angrily; "I want no one here; I want wine; leave me in peace." "Don't get angry, little uncle; we'll fetch you some wine." "Number six wine, rue des Canettes," cried the pauper. "Yes, I know," replied Madame Cardinal; "but let me count out my coppers.
Completely insensible, Toupillier was now an inert mass, a dead-weight, which could, fortunately, be handled without much precaution, and the athletic Madame Cardinal, gathering strength from her cupidity, contrived, notwithstanding Cerizet's insufficient assistance, to effect the transfer of her uncle from one bed to the other.
"Do you want to see the rector?" Madame Cardinal inquired of her uncle. She had noticed that the arrival of the bed seemed to draw him from his somnolence. "I want wine!" replied the pauper. "How do you feel now, Pere Toupillier?" asked Madame Perrache, in a coaxing voice. "I tell you I want wine," repeated the old man, with an energetic insistence scarcely to be expected of his feebleness.
I won't have a doctor; they are all scoundrels, invented to kill people," cried Toupillier, whom the idea of drink had revived. "Come, give me the wine!" he said, in the tone of a man whose patience had come to an end.
Ain't I a Toupillier myself? What do you want to do with them, those Toupilliers?" This savage outburst was hastily repressed by Cerizet, who uttered a prolonged "Hush-sh!" such as all conspirators obey. "Well, go and find out all you can about it, and come back to me," said Cerizet, pushing the woman toward the door, and whispering, as he did so, a few words in her ear.
"Your fish, indeed!" cried Toupillier; "all rotten! That last you brought me, more than six weeks ago, it is there in the cupboard; you can take it away with you." "Heavens! how ungrateful sick men are!" whispered the widow Cardinal to Perrache. Nevertheless, to exhibit solicitude, she arranged the pillow under the patient's head, saying: "There! uncle, don't you feel better like that?"
What! my uncle Toupillier rich! the old pauper of the church of Saint-Sulpice!" "Ah!" returned the porter, "but he fed well. He went to bed every night with his best friend, a big bottle of Roussillon. My wife has tasted it, though he told us it was common stuff. The wine-merchant in the rue des Canettes supplies it to him."
"And there was no possibility of arguing with him, for that would be exposure," remarked Cerizet, who was not far from sympathizing in a trick so boldly played. "No doubt," resumed du Portail; "the robbery was already noised about, and Toupillier, who was a very able fellow, had calculated that Charles Crochard would not dare to publicly accuse him, for that would reveal the theft.
"We must first find out if it is good for you, uncle," said Madame Cardinal, soothingly. "Wait till the doctor comes." "Doctor! I won't have a doctor!" cried Toupillier; "and you, what are you doing here? I don't want anybody." "My good uncle, I came to know if you'd like something tasty. I've got some nice fresh soles hey! a bit of fried sole, with a squeeze of lemon on it?"
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