"One thing more you do not know," he continued, "and this it is. If you had only to do with President Camusot himself, it would be nothing; but he has a wife, mind you!—and if you ever find yourself face to face with that wife, you will shake in your shoes as if you were on the first step of the scaffold, your hair will stand on end. The Presidente is so vindictive that she would spend ten years over setting a trap to kill you. She sets that husband of hers spinning like a top. Through her a charming young fellow committed suicide at the Conciergerie. A count was accused of forgery—she made his character as white as snow. She all but drove a person of the highest quality from the Court of Charles X. Finally, she displaced the Attorney-General, M. de Granville—"
"That lived in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Francois?"
"The very same. They say that she means to make her husband Home Secretary, and I do not know that she will not gain her end.—If she were to take it into her head to send us both to the Criminal Court first and the hulks afterwards—I should apply for a passport and set sail for America, though I am as innocent as a new-born babe. So well I know what justice means. Now, see here, my dear Mme. Cibot; to marry her only daughter to young Vicomte Popinot (heir to M. Pillerault, your landlord, it is said)—to make that match, she stripped herself of her whole fortune, so much so that the President and his wife have nothing at this moment except his official salary. Can you suppose, my dear madame, that under the circumstances Mme. la Presidente will let M. Pons' property go out of the family without a word?—Why, I would sooner face guns loaded with grape-shot than have such a woman for my enemy—"
"But they have quarreled," put in La Cibot.
"What has that got to do with it?" asked Fraisier. "It is one reason the more for fearing her. To kill a relative of whom you are tired, is something; but to inherit his property afterwards—that is a real pleasure!"
"But the old gentleman has a horror of his relatives. He says over and over again that these people—M. Cardot, M. Berthier, and the rest of them (I can't remember their names)—have crushed him as a tumbril cart crushes an egg—"
"Have you a mind to be crushed too?"
"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried La Cibot. "Ah! Ma'am Fontaine was right when she said that I should meet with difficulties: still, she said that I should succeed—"
"Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot.—As for making some thirty thousand francs out of this business—that is possible; but for the whole of the property, it is useless to think of it. We talked over your case yesterday evening, Dr. Poulain and I—"
La Cibot started again.