Sons of the Soil

by Honoré de Balzac

In 1823 Rigou, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude, still blew the fire with an air-cane, and left the bellows hanging to the screw.

Madame Niseron, idolizing her daughter, did not long survive her. Mother and child died in 1794. The old abbe, too, was dead, and citizen Rigou took charge of Arsene’s affairs by marrying her. A former convert in the monastery, attached to Rigou as a dog is to his master, became the groom, gardener, herdsman, valet, and steward of the sensual Harpagon. Arsene Rigou, the daughter, married in 1821 without dowry to the prosecuting-attorney, inheriting something of her mother’s rather vulgar beauty, together with the crafty mind of her father.

Now about sixty-seven years of age, Rigou had never been ill in his life, and nothing seemed able to lessen his aggressively good health. Tall, lean, with brown circles round his eyes, the lids of which were nearly black, any one who saw him of a morning, when as he dressed he exposed the wrinkled, red, and granulated skin of his neck, would have compared him to a condor,—all the more because his long nose, sharp at the tip, increased the likeness by its sanguineous color. His head, partly bald, would have frightened phrenologists by the shape of its skull, which was like an ass’s backbone, an indication of despotic will. His grayish eyes, half-covered by filmy, red-veined lids, were predestined to aid hypocrisy. Two scanty locks of hair of an undecided color overhung the large ears, which were long and without rim, a sure sign of cruelty, but cruelty of the moral nature only, unless where it means actual insanity. The mouth, very broad, with thin lips, indicated a sturdy eater and a determined drinker by the drop of its corners, which turned downward like two commas, from which drooled gravy when he ate and saliva when he talked. Heliogabalus must have been like this.

His dress, which never varied, consisted of a long blue surtout with a military collar, a black cravat, with waistcoat and trousers of black cloth. His shoes, very thick soled, had iron nails outside, and inside woollen linings knit by his wife in the winter evenings. Annette and her mistress also knit the master’s stockings. Rigou’s name was Gregoire.

Though this sketch gives some idea of the man’s character, no one can imagine the point to which, in his private and unthwarted life, the ex-Benedictine had pushed the science of selfishness, good living, and sensuality. In the first place, he dined alone, waited upon by his wife and Annette, who themselves dined with Jean in the kitchen, while the master digested his meal and disposed of his wine as he read “the news.”

In the country the special names of journals are never mentioned; they are all called by the general name of “the news.”

Rigou’s dinner, like his breakfast and supper, was always of choice delicacies, cooked with the art which distinguishes a priest’s housekeeper from all other cooks. Madame Rigou made the butter herself twice a week. Cream was a concomitant of many sauces. The vegetables came at a jump, as it were, from their frames to the saucepan. Parisians, who are accustomed to eat the fruits of the earth after they have had a second ripening in the sun of a city, infected by the air of the streets, fermenting in close shops, and watered from time to time by the market-women to give them a deceitful freshness, have little idea of the exquisite flavors of really fresh produce, to which nature has lent fugitive but powerful charms when eaten as it were alive.

The butcher of Soulanges brought his best meat under fear of losing Rigou’s custom. The poultry, raised on the premises, was of the finest quality.

This system of secret pampering embraced everything in which Rigou was personally concerned. Though the slippers of the knowing Thelemist were of stout leather they were lined with lamb’s wool. Though his coat was of rough cloth it did not touch his skin, for his shirt, washed and ironed at home, was of the finest Frisian linen. His wife, Annette, and Jean drank the common wine of the country, the wine he reserved from his own vineyards; but in his private cellar, as well stocked as the cellars of Belgium, the finest vintages of Burgundy rubbed sides with those of Bordeaux, Champagne, Roussillon, not to speak of Spanish and Rhine wines, all bought ten years in advance of use and bottled by Brother Jean. The liqueurs in that cellar were those of the Isles, and came originally from Madame Amphoux. Rigou had laid in a supply to last him the rest of his days, at the national sale of a chateau in Burgundy.

The ex-monk ate and drank like Louis XIV. (one of the greatest consumers of food and drink ever known), which reveals the costs of a life that was more than voluptuous. Careful and very shrewd in managing his secret prodigalities, he disputed all purchases as only churchmen can dispute. Instead of taking infinite precautions against being cheated, the sly monk kept patterns and samples, had the agreements reduced to writing, and warned those who forwarded his wines or his provisions that if they fell short of the mark in any way he should refuse to accept their consignments.