"The said
Sophie Gamard is armed with claws."
Poor Birotteau never imagined in his childish brain that anything
could ever separate him from that house where he expected to live and
die with Mademoiselle Gamard. He had no remembrance whatever of that
clause, the terms of which he had not discussed, for they had seemed
quite just to him at a time when, in his great anxiety to enter the
old maid's house, he would readily have signed any and all legal
documents she had offered him. His simplicity was so guileless and
Mademoiselle Gamard's conduct so atrocious, the fate of the poor old
man seemed so deplorable, and his natural helplessness made him so
touching, that in the first glow of her indignation Madame de
Listomere exclaimed: "I made you put your signature to that document
which has ruined you; I am bound to give you back the happiness of
which I have deprived you."
"But," remarked Monsieur de Bourbonne, "that deed constitutes a fraud;
there may be ground for a lawsuit."
"Then Birotteau shall go to the law. If he loses at Tours he may win
at Orleans; if he loses at Orleans, he'll win in Paris," cried the
Baron de Listomere.
"But if he does go to law," continued Monsieur de Bourbonne, coldly,
"I should advise him to resign his vicariat."
"We will consult lawyers," said Madame de Listomere, "and go to law if
law is best. But this affair is so disgraceful for Mademoiselle
Gamard, and is likely to be so injurious to the Abbe Troubert, that I
think we can compromise.
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