This M. Lebègue, some months before, had married one of M. Deviolaine's daughters by his first marriage: her name was Éléonore. The eldest daughter, Léontine, had been married to a tax collector named Cornu some time before her sister's wedding. The singularity of the name had not prevented the marriage from coming off. The sharp-tongued young girl feared to be jeered at in her turn, and the wittier she became, the more she dreaded even the appearance of being ridiculous. But Cornu was such a good-natured, honest-hearted fellow, everybody was so used to the name, which had been borne by several families in Villers-Cotterets, he was so used to it himself, he responded so naïvely and triumphantly to the remarks of his _fiancée,_ that the matter was settled.
When she was married to him she made up her mind to raise the unfortunate name which fate had given her above even the suspicion of any banter naturally connected with it: she was the most chaste of wives, the tenderest of mothers I have ever known, and her husband, a happy man himself, made her happy too.
But it was not so with her sister, Madame Lebègue, who was three or four years younger, prettier, and far more of a flirt than she was. Her flirtations were innocent enough, I have no doubt, but they were as a rule looked upon maliciously by the gossips of the little town--a matter to which Madame Lebègue in her innocence paid little heed; concerning which, in her indifference to such calumnies, she simply teased her husband. He was a stout, rotund fellow, pockmarked, rather ugly, with a somewhat common-looking face, but a good fellow at heart--although I have been told since that he ruined himself, not from having lent at too low interest, but from an entirely opposite reason. I am wholly ignorant as to the truth of this accusation: I take it to be a calumny similar to the more pleasing and certainly more human accusation levelled against the wife.
It was this man who had just come in, who sat down by M. Mennesson and who was at that moment holding a whispered conversation with him, interspersed with guffaws of laughter. Thanks to the extremely delicate hearing with which I was gifted by nature, and which I had cultivated during hunting, I thought I could distinguish my own name; but I supposed I had not heard correctly, not flattering myself that two such grave personages could be doing me the honour of talking about me. Unluckily for my pride,--and I have indicated to what a pitch this feeling was developed in me, a height that would have been absurd if it had not been painful,--unluckily for my pride, then, I was not kept long in doubt that the discussion was about me.