ards lived without other
society than that of the Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed
vicar of Saint-Paul's after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides
this ecclesiastic, who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a
paternal uncle of Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from
business ever since the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine
years old, came to see them on Sundays only, because on that day no
government business went on.

This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of a
tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his gray hair
to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with straps that
extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled thread knitted
by his niece, whom he always called "the little Saillard," stout shoes
with silver buckles, and a surtout coat of mixed colors. He looked very
much like those verger-beadle-bell-ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks
who are taken to be caricatures until we see them performing their
various functions. On the present occasion he had come on foot to dine
with the Saillards, intending to return in the same way to the rue
Greneta, where he lived on the third floor of an old house. His business
was that of discounting commercial paper in the quartier Saint-Martin,
where he was known by the nickname of "Gigonnet," from the nervous
convulsive movement with which he lifted his legs in walking, like a
cat. Monsieur Bidault began this business in the year II. in partnership
with a dutchman named Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.

Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the rue
de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced young
Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying her.
Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a certain
Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer,
father and mother of Isidore, highly respected leather-dressers in the
rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune out of a small trade.
After marrying their only son, on whom they settled fifty thousand
francs, they determined to live in the country, and had lately removed
to the neighborhood of Ile-d'Adam, where after a time they were joined
by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris, however, where they kept a
corner in the house in the rue Censier w