bservant of forms as an oriental,--he
enforced in his own house a discipline of strict abstemiousness,
weighing and measuring out the food and drink of the family, which,
indeed, was rather numerous, and consisted of his wife, nee Lousteau,
his grandson Borniche with a sister Adolphine, the heirs of old
Borniche, and lastly, his other grandson, Francois Hochon.

Hochon's eldest son was taken by the draft of 1813, which drew in the
sons of well-to-do families who had escaped the regular conscription,
and were now formed into a corps styled the "guards of honor." This
heir-presumptive, who was killed at Hanau, had married early in life a
rich woman, intending thereby to escape all conscriptions; but after he
was enrolled, he wasted his substance, under a presentiment of his end.
His wife, who followed the army at a distance, died at Strasburg
in 1814, leaving debts which her father-in-law Hochon refused to
pay,--answering the creditors with an axiom of ancient law, "Women are
minors."

The house, though large, was scantily furnished; on the second floor,
however, there were two rooms suitable for Madame Bridau and Joseph. Old
Hochon now repented that he had kept them furnished with two beds,
each bed accompanied by an old armchair of natural wood covered with
needlework, and a walnut table, on which figured a water-pitcher of the
wide-mouthed kind called "gueulard," standing in a basin with a blue
border. The old man kept his winter store of apples and pears, medlars
and quinces on heaps of straw in these rooms, where the rats and mice
ran riot, so that they exhaled a mingled odor of fruit and vermin.
Madame Hochon now directed that everything should be cleaned; the
wall-paper, which had peeled off in places, was fastened up again with
wafers; and she decorated the windows with little curtains which she
pieced together from old hoards of her own. Her husband having refused
to let her buy a strip of drugget, she laid down her own bedside carpet
for her little Agathe,--"Poor little thing!" as she called the mother,
who was now over forty-seven years old. Madame Hochon borrowed two
night-tables from a neighbor, and boldly hired two chests of drawers
with brass handles from a dealer in second-hand furniture who lived next
to Mere Cognette. She herself had preserved two pairs of candlesticks,
carved in choice woods by her own father, who had the "turning" mania.
From 1770 to 1780 it was the fashion among rich people to learn