“Don’t you see, my dear friend,” said Madame de Listomere, “that the Abbe Troubert wants your apartment?”
Here the historian ought to sketch this lady; but it occurs to him that even those who are ignorant of Sterne’s system of “cognomology,” cannot pronounce the three words “Madame de Listomere” without picturing her to themselves as noble and dignified, softening the sternness of rigid devotion by the gracious elegance and the courteous manners of the old monarchical regime; kind, but a little stiff; slightly nasal in voice; allowing herself the perusal of “La Nouvelle Heloise”; and still wearing her own hair.
“The Abbe Birotteau must not yield to that old vixen,” cried Monsieur de Listomere, a lieutenant in the navy who was spending a furlough with his aunt. “If the vicar has pluck and will follow my suggestions he will soon recover his tranquillity.”
All present began to analyze the conduct of Mademoiselle Gamard with the keen perceptions which characterize provincials, to whom no one can deny the talent of knowing how to lay bare the most secret motives of human actions.
“You don’t see the whole thing yet,” said an old landowner who knew the region well. “There is something serious behind all this which I can’t yet make out. The Abbe Troubert is too deep to be fathomed at once. Our dear Birotteau is at the beginning of his troubles. Besides, would he be left in peace and comfort even if he did give up his lodging to Troubert? I doubt it. If Caron came here to tell you that you intended to leave Mademoiselle Gamard,” he added, turning to the bewildered priest, “no doubt Mademoiselle Gamard’s intention is to turn you out. Therefore you will have to go, whether you like it or not. Her sort of people play a sure game, they risk nothing.”
This old gentleman, Monsieur de Bourbonne, could sum up and estimate provincial ideas as correctly as Voltaire summarized the spirit of his times. He was thin and tall, and chose to exhibit in the matter of clothes the quiet indifference of a landowner whose territorial value is quoted in the department. His face, tanned by the Touraine sun, was less intellectual than shrewd. Accustomed to weigh his words and measure his actions, he concealed a profound vigilance behind a misleading appearance of simplicity. A very slight observation of him sufficed to show that, like a Norman peasant, he invariably held the upper hand in business matters. He was an authority on wine-making, the leading science of Touraine. He had managed to extend the meadow lands of his domain by taking in a part of the alluvial soil of the Loire without getting into difficulties with the State. This clever proceeding gave him the reputation of a man of talent. If Monsieur de Bourbonne’s conversation pleased you and you were to ask who he was of a Tourainean, “Ho! a sly old fox!” would be the answer of those who were envious of him--and they were many. In Touraine, as in many of the provinces, jealousy is the root of language.