"Oh! really, Duchess, you force me to speak of persons and things, which ..."
"Yes, yes, I force you to; we understand that. But tell me! Bluntly, without mincing matters, if necessary. You know that I have no objection to that sort of thing, so go on. Do not keep me in suspense like this. I am burning with curiosity. What does Julot do?"
"Very well, little volunteer, if you insist on knowing, I will tell you. Julot, generally called _Fine-Gueule_, is a trier of women."
"I will explain it to you. There are a few of us old amateurs in Paris, who are too old and impatient to hunt for truffles, but who want them of such and such a flavor, exactly to our taste. Now, Julot knows our tastes, our various fancies, and he undertakes ..."
He had been registered under the names of Jean Marie Mathieu Valot, but he was never called anything but _Mademoiselle_. He was the idiot of the district, but not one of those wretched, ragged idiots who live on public charity. He lived comfortably on a small income which his mother had left him, and which his guardian paid him regularly, and so he was rather envied than pitied. And then, he was not one of those idiots with wild looks, and the manners of an animal, for he was by no means an unpleasing object, with his half-open lips and smiling eyes, and especially in his constant make-up in female dress. For he dressed like a girl, and showed by that, how little he objected to being called _Mademoiselle_.
And why should he not like the nickname which his mother had given him affectionately, when he was a mere child, and so delicate and weak, with such a fair complexion, a poor little diminutive lad, that he was not as tall as many girls of the same age? It was in pure love that, in his earlier years, his mother whispered that tender _Mademoiselle_ to him, while his old grandmother used to say jokingly:
"The fact is, that as for the _tip-cat_ he has got, it is really not worth mentioning in a Christian. No offense to God in saying so." And his grandfather who was equally fond of a joke, used to add: "I only hope he will not lose it, as he grows bigger, like tadpoles do their tails!"
And they treated him as if he had really been a girl and coddled him, the more so as they were very prosperous, and did not require a man to keep things together.