ishop
Monsieur Habert was sent for and admonished to cease his visits to the
Rogrons; but his sister continued to go there. Thus the salon Rogron
became a fixed fact and a constituted power.

Before the year was out political intrigues were not less lively than
the matrimonial schemes of the Rogron salon. While the selfish
interests hidden in these hearts were struggling in deadly combat the
events which resulted from them had a fatal celebrity. Everybody knows
that the Villele ministry was overthrown by the elections of 1826.
Vinet, the Liberal candidate at Provins, who had borrowed money of his
notary to buy a domain which made him eligible for election, came very
near defeating Monsieur Tiphaine, who saved his election by only two
votes. The headquarters of the Liberals was the Rogron salon; among
the _habitues_ were the notary Cournant and his wife, and Doctor
Neraud, whose youth was said to have been stormy, but who now took a
serious view of life; he gave himself up to study and was, according
to all Liberals, a far more capable man than Monsieur Martener, the
aristocratic physician. As for the Rogrons, they no more understood
their present triumph than they had formerly understood their
ostracism.

The beautiful Bathilde, to whom Vinet had explained Pierrette as an
enemy, was extremely disdainful to the girl. It seemed as though
everybody's selfish schemes demanded the humiliation of that poor
victim. Madame Vinet could do nothing for her, ground as she herself
was beneath those implacable self-interests which the lawyer's wife
had come at last to see and comprehend. Her husband's imperious will
had alone taken her to the Rogron's house, where she had suffered much
at the harsh treatment of the pretty little creature, who would often
press up against her as if divining her secret thoughts, sometimes
asking the poor lady to show her a stitch in knitting or to teach her
a bit of embroidery. The child proved in return that if she were
treated gently she would understand what was taught her, and succeed
in what she tried to do quite marvellously. But Madame Vinet was soon
no longer necessary to her husband's plans, and after the arrival of
Madame and Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf she ceased to visit the
Rogrons.

Sylvie, who now indulged in the idea of marrying, began to consider
Pierrette as an obstacle. The girl was nearly fourteen; the pallid
whiteness of her skin, a symptom of illness entirely overlooked by the