Nevertheless, in spite of her “as you will,” Jean-Jacques got no further.  Men of his nature want certainty.  The effort that they make in avowing their love is so great, and costs them so much, that they feel unable to go on with it.  This accounts for their attachment to the first woman who accepts them.  We can only guess at circumstances by results.  Ten months after the death of his father, Jean-Jacques changed completely; his leaden face cleared, and his whole countenance breathed happiness.  Flore exacted that he should take minute care of his person, and her own vanity was gratified in seeing him well-dressed; she always stood on the sill of the door, and watched him starting for a walk, until she could see him no longer.  The whole town noticed these changes, which had made a new man of the bachelor.

“Have you heard the news?” people said to each other in Issoudun.

“What is it?”

“Jean-Jacques inherits everything from his father, even the Rabouilleuse.”

“Don’t you suppose the old doctor was wicked enough to provide a ruler for his son?”

“Rouget has got a treasure, that’s certain,” said everybody.

“She’s a sly one!  She is very handsome, and she will make him marry her.”

“What luck that girl has had, to be sure!”

“The luck that only comes to pretty girls.”

“Ah, bah! do you believe that? look at my uncle Borniche-Herau.  You have heard of Mademoiselle Ganivet? she was as ugly as seven capital sins, but for all that, she got three thousand francs a year out of him.”

“Yes, but that was in 1778.”

“Still, Rouget is making a mistake.  His father left him a good forty thousand francs’ income, and he ought to marry Mademoiselle Herau.”

“The doctor tried to arrange it, but she would not consent; Jean-Jacques is so stupid—­”

“Stupid! why women are very happy with that style of man.”

“Is your wife happy?”

Such was the sort of tattle that ran through Issoudun.  If people, following the use and wont of the provinces, began by laughing at this quasi-marriage, they ended by praising Flore for devoting herself to the poor fellow.  We now see how it was that Flore Brazier obtained the management of the Rouget household,—­from father to son, as young Goddet had said.  It is desirable to sketch the history of that management for the edification of old bachelors.

Fanchette, the cook, was the only person in Issoudun who thought it wrong that Flore Brazier should be queen over Jean-Jacques Rouget and his home.  She protested against the immorality of the connection, and took a tone of injured virtue; the fact being that she was humiliated by having, at her age, a crab-girl for a mistress,—­a child who had been brought barefoot into the house.  Fanchette owned three hundred francs a year in the Funds, for the doctor made her invest her savings in that way, and he had left her as much more in an annuity; she could therefore live at her ease without the necessity of working, and she quitted the house nine months after the funeral of her old master, April 15, 1806.  That date may indicate, to a perspicacious observer, the epoch at which Flore Brazier ceased to be an honest girl.