This appointment greatly annoyed Desfondrilles. The Keeper of
the Seals sent down one of his own proteges to fill Lesourd's place.
The promotion of Monsieur Tiphaine and his translation to Paris were
therefore of no benefit at all to the Vinet party; but Vinet
nevertheless made a clever use of the result. He had always told the
Provins people that they were being used as a stepping-stone to raise
the crafty Madame Tiphaine into grandeur; Tiphaine himself had tricked
them; Madame Tiphaine despised both Provins and its people in her
heart, and would never return there again. Just at this crisis
Monsieur Tiphaine's father died; his son inherited a fine estate and
sold his house in Provins to Monsieur Julliard. The sale proved to the
minds of all how little the Tiphaines thought of Provins. Vinet was
right; Vinet had been a true prophet. These things had great influence
on the question of Pierrette's guardianship.
Thus the dreadful martyrdom brutally inflicted on the poor child by
two imbecile tyrants (which led, through its consequences, to the
terrible operation of trepanning, performed by Monsieur Martener under
the advice of Doctor Bianchon),--all this horrible drama reduced to
judicial form was left to float in the vile mess called in legal
parlance the calendar. The case was made to drag through the delays
and the interminable labyrinths of the law, by the shufflings of an
unprincipled lawyer; and during all this time the calumniated girl
languished in the agony of the worst pain known to science.
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