United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The instinct of the first may have led them to perceive the real superiority of this thinker, who said little but smiled at their absurdities so satirically that they first doubted his capacity and then whispered tales against it; as for the other class they took no notice of him one way or the other. Vermut was the butt of Madame Soudry's salon.
Gaubertin suspected some treachery on Soudry's part, and Soudry and Lupin thought they were tricked by Gaubertin. But a statement on the part of the purchasing agent, the notary of Ville-aux-Fayes, disabused them of these suspicions.
But she made an exception in favor of Lupin on account of his elegance, and, moreover, because she thought her glory at Soulanges was not complete without an adorer; but, to Soudry's despair, the queen's adorers never carried their adoration so far as to threaten his rights.
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.
Poor Guerbet! he little suspects who is trying to pluck the best roses out of his garland!" Pere Guerbet, the collector of Soulanges, was the wit, that is to say, the jovial companion of the little town, and a hero in Madame Soudry's salon.
"That will pick you up, a pretty bit like that," he said. "It was cured in the house; we cut into it only yesterday." "Where did you find her?" said the ex-Benedictine in Soudry's ear. "She is like the ham," replied the ex-gendarme, winking again; "I have had her only a week."
The moment the little green carriole and the bay horse passed the Cafe de la Paix, Urbain, Soudry's man-servant, who was seated on a bench under the dining-room windows, and was gossipping with the tavern-keeper, shades his eyes with his hand to see who was coming. "It's Pere Rigou," he said. "I must go round and open the door. Take his horse, Socquard."
Soudry's speech gives a fair idea of the opinion which now grew up against the master of Les Aigues from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes, and wherever else the public mind could be reached and poisoned by Gaubertin. The installation of Sibilet took place in the autumn of 1817.
Amaury never came to Madame Soudry's; he said she bored him; for, with a recollection of her early days, she attempted to "educate" him, as she called it, whereas he much preferred the pleasures and billiards of the Cafe de la Paix. He frequented the worst company of Soulanges, even down to Bonnebault.
To the great astonishment of every one, Monsieur and Madame Soudry acknowledged as legitimate, in their marriage contract, a natural son of the gendarme, to whom, in future, Madame Soudry's fortune was to descend.
Word Of The Day