I left the room furious, and for three months after I would not enter the house where I had received such a humiliation.
How came it about that I knew anything concerning the Corps Législatif?
It was in this wise.
One day I had seen M. Collard in a blue coat braided with gold.
"You are a general, then, like my papa?" I asked him roguishly.
"No, my little friend," he answered, "I am a member of the Corps Législatif."
And from that time I used to read the proceedings of the Corps Législatif to find out what M. Collard said there.
But my curiosity was never gratified.
However, everybody was not so contemptuous about my learning as M. Deviolaine had shown himself to be. Among others, there were three or four elderly devotees—one of them a certain damsel of sixty-five or sixty-six called Pivert—who appreciated and praised my knowledge. There was no kind of story, whether sacred or profane, that they did not make me relate; and Mademoiselle Pivert in particular, not contented with my recitals, had recourse to my library, in order to get at the source of my information.