Graslin employed a charwoman by the day, an old peasant from Auvergne, who did his cooking. The brown earthenware off which he ate, and the stout coarse linen which he used, were in keeping with the character of his food. The old woman had strict orders never to spend more than three francs daily for the total expenses of the household. The office-boy was also man-of-all-work. The clerks took care of their own rooms. The tables of blackened wood, the straw chairs half unseated, the wretched beds, the counters and desks, in short, the whole furniture of house and office was not worth more than a thousand francs, including a colossal iron safe, built into the wall, before which slept the man-of-all-work with two dogs at his feet.
Graslin did not often go into society, which, however, discussed him constantly. Two or three times a year he dined with the receiver- general, with whom his business brought him into occasional intercourse. He also occasionally took a meal at the prefecture; for he had been appointed, much to his regret, a member of the Council- general of the department--"a waste of time," he remarked. Sometimes his brother bankers with whom he had dealings kept him to breakfast or dinner; and he was forced also to visit his former partners, who spent their winters in Limoges. He cared so little to keep up his relations to society that in twenty-five years Graslin had not offered so much as a glass of water to any one. When he passed along the street persons would nudge each other and say: "That's Monsieur Graslin"; meaning, "There's a man who came to Limoges without a penny and has now acquired an enormous fortune." The Auvergnat banker was a model which more than one father pointed out to his son, and wives had been known to fling him in the faces of their husbands.
We can now understand the reasons that led a man who had become the pivot of the financial machine of Limoges to repulse the various propositions of marriage which parents never ceased to make to him.
The daughters of his partners, Messrs. Perret and Grossetete, were married before Graslin was in a position to take a wife; but as each of these ladies had young daughters, the wiseheads of the community finally concluded that old Perret or old Grossetete had made an arrangement with Graslin to wait for one of his granddaughters, and thenceforth they left him alone.
Sauviat had watched the ascending career of his compatriot more attentively and seriously than any one else. He had known him from the time he first came to Limoges; but their respective positions had changed so much, at least apparently, that their friendship, now become merely superficial, was seldom freshened. Still, in his relation as compatriot, Graslin never disdained to talk with Sauviat when they chanced to meet. Both continued to keep up their early /tutoiement/, but only in their native dialect. When the receiver- general of Bourges, the youngest of the brothers Grossetete, married his daughter in 1823 to the youngest son of Comte Fontaine, Sauviat felt sure that the Grossetetes would never allow Graslin to enter their family.
After his conference with the banker, Pere Sauviat returned home joyously. He dined that night in his daughter's room, and after dinner he said to his womenkind:--"Veronique will be Madame Graslin."
"Madame Graslin!" exclaimed Mere Sauviat, astounded.
"Is it possible?" said Veronique, to whom Graslin was personally unknown, and whose imagination regarded him very much as a Parisian grisette would regard a Rothschild.
"Yes, it is settled," said old Sauviat solemnly. "Graslin will furnish his house magnificently; he is to give our daughter a fine Parisian carriage and the best horses to be found in the Limousin; he will buy an estate worth five hundred thousand francs, and settle that and his town-house upon her. Veronique will be the first lady in Limoges, the richest in the department, and she can do what she pleases with Graslin."
Veronique's education, her religious ideas, and her boundless affection for her parents, prevented her from making a single objection; it did not even cross her mind to think that she had been disposed of without reference to her own will. On the morrow Sauviat went to Paris, and was absent for nearly a week.
Pierre Graslin was, as can readily be imagined, not much of a talker; he went straight and rapidly to deeds. A thing decided on was a thing done. In February, 1822, a strange piece of news burst like a thunderbolt on the town of Limoges. The hotel Graslin was being handsomely furnished; carriers' carts came day after day from Paris, and their contents were unpacked in the courtyard. Rumors flew about the town as to the beauty and good taste of the modern or the antique furniture as it was seen to arrive. The great firm of Odiot and Company sent down a magnificent service of plate by the mail-coach.
Three carriages, a caleche, a coupe, and a cabriolet arrived, wrapped in straw with as much care as if they were jewels.
"Monsieur Graslin is going to be married!"
These words were said by every pair of lips in Limoges in the course of a single evening,--in the salons of the upper classes, in the kitchens, in the shops, in the streets, in the suburbs, and before long throughout the whole surrounding country. But to whom? No one could answer. Limoges had a mystery.