Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/58

 deceased old notary, who was accepted. When the heirs knew that their uncle or great-uncle Minoret was positively going to live at Nemours, their families were seized, in spite of the political events which at that time weighed upon Le Gâtinais and La Brie, with a devouring but almost legitimate curiosity. Was their uncle rich? Was he economical or extravagant? Would he leave a handsome fortune, or none at all? Had he any life annuities? This is what they finally learnt, but with infinite difficulty and by means of underhand espionage. After the death of Ursule Minoret, his wife, from 1789 to 1813, the doctor, appointed consulting physician to the Emperor in 1805, must have earned a great deal of money, but nobody knew his income; he lived simply, with no other expenses than those of a carriage by the year, and a sumptuous apartment; he never received company and nearly always dined out. His housekeeper, furious at not accompanying him to Nemours, told Zélie Levrault, the postmaster’s wife, that she knew the doctor to have fourteen thousand francs income from the Funds. Now, after twenty years’ practice in a profession which the titles of head physician of a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member of the Institute rendered so lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs income, profit of successive investments, implied at the most one hundred and sixty thousand francs savings! To have saved only eight thousand francs a year, the doctor must have had a great many vices or a great many virtues to gratify;