"Bah! don't talk nonsense! After such a life as Rouget and Lousteau
led from 1770 to 1787, is it likely that either of them would have
children at sixty-five years of age? The old villain has read the
Scriptures, if only as a doctor, and he is doing as David did in his
old age; that's all."
"They say that Brazier, when he is drunk, boasts in Vatan that he
cheated him," cried one of those who always believed the worst of
people.
"Good heavens! neighbor; what won't they say at Issoudun?"
From 1800 to 1805, that is, for five years, the doctor enjoyed all the
pleasures of educating Flore without the annoyances which the
ambitions and pretensions of Mademoiselle de Romans inflicted, it is
said, on Louis le Bien-Aime. The little Rabouilleuse was so satisfied
when she compared the life she led at the doctor's with that she would
have led at her uncle Brazier's, that she yielded no doubt to the
exactions of her master as if she had been an Eastern slave. With due
deference to the makers of idylls and to philanthropists, the
inhabitants of the provinces have very little idea of certain virtues;
and their scruples are of a kind that is roused by self-interest, and
not by any sentiment of the right or the becoming. Raised from infancy
with no prospect before them but poverty and ceaseless labor, they are
led to consider anything that saves them from the hell of hunger and
eternal toil as permissible, particularly if it is not contrary to any
law. Exceptions to this rule are rare.
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