It was striking half-past three in the morning as the Knights slipped out in silence to go to their homes; gliding close to the walls of the houses without making the least noise, shod as they were in list shoes.  Max slowly returned to the place Saint-Jean, situated in the upper part of the town, between the port Saint-Jean and the port Vilatte, the quarter of the rich bourgeoisie.  Maxence Gilet had concealed his fears, but the news had struck home.  His experience on the hulks at Cabrera had taught him a dissimulation as deep and thorough as his corruption.  First, and above all else, the forty thousand francs a year from landed property which old Rouget owned was, let it be clearly understood, the constituent element of Max’s passion for Flore Brazier.  By his present bearing it is easy to see how much confidence the woman had given him in the financial future she expected to obtain through the infatuation of the old bachelor.  Nevertheless, the news of the arrival of the legitimate heirs was of a nature to shake Max’s faith in Flore’s influence.  Rouget’s savings, accumulating during the last seventeen years, still stood in his own name; and even if the will, which Flore declared had long been made in her favor, were revoked, these savings at least might be secured by putting them in the name of Mademoiselle Brazier.

“That fool of a girl never told me, in all these seven years, a word about the sister and nephews!” cried Max, turning from the rue de la Marmouse into the rue l’Avenier.  “Seven hundred and fifty thousand francs placed with different notaries at Bourges, and Vierzon, and Chateauroux, can’t be turned into money and put into the Funds in a week, without everybody knowing it in this gossiping place!  The most important thing is to get rid of these relations; as soon as they are driven away we ought to make haste to secure the property.  I must think it over.”

Max was tired.  By the help of a pass-key, he let himself into Pere Rouget’s house, and went to bed without making any noise, saying to himself,—­

“To-morrow, my thoughts will be clear.”

It is now necessary to relate where the sultana of the place Saint-Jean picked up the nickname of “Rabouilleuse,” and how she came to be the quasi-mistress of Jean-Jacques Rouget’s home.

As old Doctor Rouget, the father of Jean-Jacques and Madame Bridau, advanced in years, he began to perceive the nonentity of his son; he then treated him harshly, trying to break him into a routine that might serve in place of intelligence.  He thus, though unconsciously, prepared him to submit to the yoke of the first tyranny that threw its halter over his head.