Of course, Monsieur Tiphaine would attain to honors; he would
be Keeper of the Seals, and then, what wouldn't he do for Provins!

Such were the pleasant means by which Madame Tiphaine had come to rule
over the little town. Madame Guenee, Monsieur Tiphaine's sister, after
having married her eldest daughter to Monsieur Lesourd, prosecuting
attorney, her second to Monsieur Martener, the doctor, and the third to
Monsieur Auffray, the notary, had herself married Monsieur Galardon, the
collector. Mother and daughters all considered Monsieur Tiphaine as the
richest and ablest man in the family. The prosecuting attorney had the
strongest interest in sending his uncle to Paris, expecting to step into
his shoes as judge of the local court of Provins. The four ladies formed
a sort of court round Madame Tiphaine, whose ideas and advice they
followed on all occasions. Monsieur Julliard, the eldest son of the old
merchant, who had married the only daughter of a rich farmer, set up
a sudden, secret, and disinterested passion for Madame Tiphaine, that
angel descended from the Parisian skies. The clever Melanie, too clever
to involve herself with Julliard, but quite capable of keeping him in
the condition of Amadis and making the most of his folly, advised him to
start a journal, intending herself to play the part of Egeria. For the
last two years, therefore, Julliard, possessed by his romantic passion,
had published the said newspaper, called the "Bee-hive," which contained
articles literary, archaeological, and medical, written in the family.
The advertisements paid expenses. The subscriptions, two hundred in
all, made the profits. Every now and then melancholy verses, totally
incomprehensible in La Brie, appeared, addressed, "TO HER!!!" with three
exclamation marks. The clan Julliard was thus united to the other clans,
and the salon of Madame Tiphaine became, naturally, the first in the
town. The few aristocrats who lived in Provins were, of course, apart,
and formed a single salon in the Upper town, at the house of the old
Comtesse de Breautey.

During the first six months of their transplantation, the Rogrons,
favored by their former acquaintance with several of these people, were
received, first by Madame Julliard the elder, and by the former Madame
Guenee, now Madame Galardon (from whom they had bought their business),
and next, after a good deal of difficulty, by Madame Tiphaine. All
parties wished to study the Rogrons before ad