"
At daybreak next morning Victorin Hulot was informed by the porter's
wife that soldiers of the municipal guard were posted all round the
premises; the police demanded Baron Hulot. The bailiff, who had
followed the woman, laid a summons in due form before the lawyer, and
asked him whether he meant to pay his father's debts. The claim was
for ten thousand francs at the suit of an usurer named Samanon, who
had probably lent the Baron two or three thousand at most. Victorin
desired the bailiff to dismiss his men, and paid.
"But is it the last?" he anxiously wondered.
Lisbeth, miserable already at seeing the family so prosperous, could
not survive this happy event. She grew so rapidly worse that Bianchon
gave her but a week to live, conquered at last in the long struggle in
which she had scored so many victories.
She kept the secret of her hatred even through a painful death from
pulmonary consumption. And, indeed, she had the supreme satisfaction
of seeing Adeline, Hortense, Hulot, Victorin, Steinbock, Celestine,
and their children standing in tears round her bed and mourning for
her as the angel of the family.
Baron Hulot, enjoying a course of solid food such as he had not known
for nearly three years, recovered flesh and strength, and was almost
himself again.
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