"Ah! my poor Célestin!" said she to her acolyte. "What a little rascal of a grandfather we're going to have to be sure!"
The only person who was perfectly at ease was Fougas. He had passed the sponge over his pranks; out of all the evil he had done, he retained no ill will against any one. Very paternal with Clementine, very gracious with M. and Mme. Renault, he evinced for Leon the most frank and cordial friendship.
"My dear boy," said he to him, "I have studied you, I know you, and I love you thoroughly; you deserve to be happy, and you shall be. You shall soon see that in buying me for twenty-five napoleons, you didn't make a bad bargain. If gratitude were banished from the universe, it would find a last abiding place in the heart of Fougas!"
Three days before the marriage, M. Bonnivet informed the family that the colonel had come into his office to ask for a conference about the contract. He had scarcely cast his eyes on the sheet of stamped paper, when Rrrrip! it was in pieces in the fireplace.
"Mister Note-scratcher," he said, "do me the honor of beginning your chef-d'oeuvre over again. The granddaughter of Fougas does not marry with an annuity of eight thousand francs. Nature and Friendship give her a million. Here it is!"
Thereupon he took from his pocket a bank check for a million, paced the study proudly, making his boots creak, and threw a thousand-franc note on a clerk's desk, crying in his clearest tones:
"Children of the Law! Here's something to drink the health of the Emperor and the Grand Army with!"
The Renault family strongly remonstrated against this liberality. Clementine, on being told of it by her intended, had a long discussion, in the presence of Mlle. Sambucco, with the young and terrible grandpapa; she tried to impress upon him that he was but twenty-four years old, that he would be getting married some day, and that his property belonged to his future family.
"I do not wish," said she, "that your children should accuse me of having robbed them. Keep your millions for my little uncles and aunts!"
But for once, Fougas would not yield an inch.