Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/80

 be the strongest. And so this terrible argument: “If little Ursule has the power to thrust her protector into the lap of the Church, she would certainly be able to make him give her the inheritance,” flashed in letters of fire across the mind of the most obtuse of the heirs. The postmaster had forgotten the enigma contained in his son’s letter, to hurry to the market place; for, if the doctor was in the church to read the ordinary of the mass, it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It must be confessed, the fears of the heirs appealed to the strongest and most legitimate of social sentiments, family interest.

“Well, Monsieur Minoret,” said the Mayor—once a miller who had become a Royalist, a Levrault-Crémière,—“when the devil was old, the devil a monk would be. They say your uncle is one of us.”

“Better late than never, cousin,” replied the postmaster, trying to conceal his vexation.

“How he would laugh,” he said, “if we were disappointed! He would be capable of marrying his son to that damned girl, whom may the devil enfold with his tail!” cried Crémière, shaking his fists, and pointing to the mayor under the porch.

“What is the matter with father Crémière?” said the butcher of Nemours, the eldest son of a Levrault-Levrault. “Is he not pleased to see his uncle going the way of Paradise?”

“Who would ever have believed it?” said the clerk.