I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of
Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I
have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your
daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too
much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has
never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs
as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have
squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's
fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act
as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their
conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice
to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In
short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the
column."
The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some
few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and
Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to
the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a
member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise.
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