"
"And open-handed he was!" said Christophe.
"There is some mistake," said Sylvie.
"Why, no there isn't! he said so himself!" said Mme. Vauquer. "And to
think that all these things have happened in my house, and in a
quarter where you never see a cat go by. On my word as an honest
woman, it's like a dream. For, look here, we saw Louis XVI. meet with
his mishap; we saw the fall of the Emperor; and we saw him come back
and fall again; there was nothing out of the way in all that, but
lodging-houses are not liable to revolutions. You can do without a
king, but you must eat all the same; and so long as a decent woman, a
de Conflans born and bred, will give you all sorts of good things for
dinner, nothing short of the end of the world ought to--but there, it
is the end of the world, that is just what it is!"
"And to think that Mlle. Michonneau who made all this mischief is to
have a thousand crowns a year for it, so I hear," cried Sylvie.
"Don't speak of her, she is a wicked woman!" said Mme. Vauquer. "She
is going to the Buneaud, who charges less than cost. But the Buneaud
is capable of anything; she must have done frightful things, robbed
and murdered people in her time.
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