Frappier’s house being thought injurious to Pierrette, owing to the noise in the street which increased the sufferings in her head, she was taken to that of her surrogate guardian, the change being as necessary medically as it was judicially.  The removal was made with the utmost caution, and was calculated to produce a great public effect.  Pierrette was laid on a mattress and carried on a stretcher by two men; a Gray Sister walked beside her with a bottle of sal volatile in her hand, while the grandmother, Brigaut, Madame Auffray, and her maid followed.  People were at their windows and doors to see the procession pass.  Certainly the state in which they saw Pierrette, pale as death, gave immense advantage to the party against the Rogrons.  The Auffrays were determined to prove to the whole town that the judge was right in the decision he had given.  Pierrette and her grandmother were installed on the second floor of Monsieur Auffray’s house.  The notary and his wife gave her every care with the greatest hospitality, which was not without a little ostentation in it.  Pierrette had her grandmother to nurse her; and Monsieur Martener and the head-surgeon of the hospital attended her.

On the evening of this day exaggerations began on both sides.  The Rogron salon was crowded.  Vinet had stirred up the whole Liberal party on the subject.  The Chargeboeuf ladies dined with the Rogrons, for the contract was to be signed that evening.  Vinet had had the banns posted at the mayor’s office in the afternoon.  He made light of the Pierrette affair.  If the Provins court was prejudiced, the Royal courts would appreciate the facts, he said, and the Auffrays would think twice before they flung themselves into such a suit.  The alliance of the Rogrons with the Chargeboeufs was an immense consideration in the minds of a certain class of people.  To them it made the Rogrons as white as snow and Pierrette an evilly disposed little girl, a serpent warmed in their bosom.

In Madame Tiphaine’s salon vengeance was had for all the mischievous scandals that the Vinet party had disseminated for the past two years.  The Rogrons were monsters, and the guardian should undergo a criminal trial.  In the Lower town, Pierrette was quite well; in the Upper town she was dying; at the Rogrons’ she scratched her wrist; at Madame Tiphaine’s her fingers were fractured and one was to be cut off.  The next day the “Courrier de Provins,” had a plausible article, extremely well-written, a masterpiece of insinuations mixed with legal points, which showed that there was no case whatever against Rogron.  The “Bee-hive,” which did not appear till two days later, could not answer without becoming defamatory; it replied, however, that in an affair like this it was best to wait until the law took its course.

The Family Council was selected by the juge de paix of the canton of Provins, and consisted of Rogron and the two Messieurs Auffray, the nearest relatives, and Monsieur Ciprey, nephew of Pierrette’s maternal grandmother.  To these were joined Monsieur Habert, Pierrette’s confessor, and Colonel Gouraud, who had always professed himself a comrade and friend of her father, Colonel Lorrain.  The impartiality of the judge in these selections was much applauded,—­Monsieur Habert and Colonel Gouraud being considered the firm friends of the Rogrons.