The session would, I believe, be still going on, if Jacques Bricheteau had not intervened.  As the marquis was preparing to read a voluminous memorandum refuting a chapter in Tallemant des Reaux’ “Historiettes” which did not redound to the credit of the great house of Sallenauve, the wise organist remarked that it was time we dined, if we intended to keep an appointment already made for seven o’clock at the office of Maitre Achille Pigoult the notary.

We dined, not at the table-d’hote, but in private, and the dinner seemed very long on account of the silent preoccupation of the marquis, and the slowness with which, owing to his loss of teeth, he swallowed his food.

At seven o’clock we went to the notary’s office; but as it is now two o’clock in the morning, and I am heavy with sleep, I shall put off till to-morrow an account of what happened there.

May 4, 5 A.M.

I reckoned on peaceful slumbers, embellished by dreams.  On the contrary, I did not sleep an hour, and I have waked up stung to the heart by an odious thought.  But before I transmit that thought to you, I must tell you what happened at the notary’s.

Maitre Achille Pigoult, a puny little man, horribly pitted with the small-pox, and afflicted with green spectacles, above which he darts glances of vivacious intelligence, asked us if we felt warm enough, the room having no fire.  Politeness required us to say yes, although he had already given signs of incendiarism by striking a match, when, from a distant and dark corner of the room, a broken, feeble voice, the owner of which we had not as yet perceived, interposed to prevent the prodigality.

“No, Achille, no, don’t make a fire,” said an old man.  “There are five in the room, and the lamp gives out a good heat; before long the room would be too hot to bear.”

Hearing these words, the marquis exclaimed:—­

“Ah! this is the good Monsieur Pigoult, formerly justice of the peace.”

Thus recognized, the old man rose and went up to my father, into whose face he peered.

“Parbleu!” he cried, “I recognize you for a Champagnard of the vieille roche.  Achille did not deceive me in declaring that I should see two of my former acquaintances.  You,” he said, addressing the organist, “you are little Bricheteau, the nephew of our good abbess, Mother Marie-des-Anges; but as for that tall skeleton, looking like a duke and peer, I can’t recall his name.  However, I don’t blame my memory; after eighty-six years’ service it may well be rusty.”

“Come, grandfather,” said Achille Pigoult, “brush up your memory; and you, gentlemen, not a word, not a gesture.  I want to be clear in my own mind.  I have not the honor to know the client for whom I am asked to draw certain deeds, and I must, as a matter of legal regularity, have him identified.”

While his son spoke, the old man was evidently straining his memory.  My father, fortunately, has a nervous twitching of the face, which increased under the fixed gaze his certifier fastened upon him.