Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/84

 nose, she used to experience frights, which more or less, always agitate tamers of wild beasts. And so she would constantly fly into rages before him, and the postilions knew, by the scoldings Minoret gave them, when he had been quarreling with his wife, for the fury rebounded on them. La Minoret was also as clever as she was mercenary. All over the town in more than one household this remark used to be made: “Where would Minoret be without his wife!”

“When you know what has happened,” replied the Master of Nemours, “you yourself will be exasperated.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Ursule has taken Doctor Minoret to mass.”

Zélie Levrault’s pupils dilated, she stood for a moment, yellow with anger, said, “I must see it to believe it!” and dashed into the church. The mass had got as far as the Elevation of the Host Befriended by the general meditation, La Minoret was then able to look into each row of chairs and benches, whilst proceeding along the chapels until she came to Ursule’s place, where she saw the old man, bareheaded, beside her.

By recalling the faces of Barbé-Marbois, Boissy d’Anglas, Morellet, Helvétius and Frederick the Great, you will at once have an exact picture of the head of Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of these famous persons. These heads, as if struck from the same coin, for they adapt themselves to medals, present a severe and almost