To obtain the important result, the doctor and the lawyer took their measures on this wise:—­

The beadle of Saint-Francois, Cantinet by name, at one time a retail dealer in glassware, lived in the Rue d’Orleans, next door to Dr. Poulain and under the same roof.  Mme. Cantinet, who saw to the letting of the chairs at Saint-Francois, once had fallen ill and Dr. Poulain had attended her gratuitously; she was, as might be expected, grateful, and often confided her troubles to him.  The “nutcrackers,” punctual in their attendance at Saint-Francois on Sundays and saints’-days, were on friendly terms with the beadle and the lowest ecclesiastical rank and file, commonly called in Paris le bas clerge, to whom the devout usually give little presents from time to time.  Mme. Cantinet therefore knew Schmucke almost as well as Schmucke knew her.  And Mme. Cantinet was afflicted with two sore troubles which enabled the lawyer to use her as a blind and involuntary agent.  Cantinet junior, a stage-struck youth, had deserted the paths of the Church and turned his back on the prospect of one day becoming a beadle, to make his debut among the supernumeraries of the Cirque-Olympique; he was leading a wild life, breaking his mother’s heart and draining her purse by frequent forced loans.  Cantinet senior, much addicted to spirituous liquors and idleness, had, in fact, been driven to retire from business by those two failings.  So far from reforming, the incorrigible offender had found scope in his new occupation for the indulgence of both cravings; he did nothing, and he drank with drivers of wedding-coaches, with the undertaker’s men at funerals, with poor folk relieved by the vicar, till his morning’s occupation was set forth in rubric on his countenance by noon.

Mme. Cantinet saw no prospect but want in her old age, and yet she had brought her husband twelve thousand francs, she said.  The tale of her woes related for the hundredth time suggested an idea to Dr. Poulain.  Once introduce her into the old bachelor’s quarters, and it would be easy by her means to establish Mme. Sauvage there as working housekeeper.  It was quite impossible to present Mme. Sauvage herself, for the “nutcrackers” had grown suspicious of every one.  Schmucke’s refusal to admit Mlle. Remonencq had sufficiently opened Fraisier’s eyes.  Still, it seemed evident that Pons and Schmucke, being pious souls, would take any one recommended by the Abbe, with blind confidence.  Mme. Cantinet should bring Mme. Sauvage with her, and to put in Fraisier’s servant was almost tantamount to installing Fraisier himself.

The Abbe Duplanty, coming downstairs, found the gateway blocked by the Cibots’ friends, all of them bent upon showing their interest in one of the oldest and most respectable porters in the Marais.

Dr. Poulain raised his hat, and took the Abbe aside.