EUGENIA GRANDET.
all Saumur had seen working at his bench, and
who, moreover, had worn the bonnet rouge.
Meantime, the most observing of the inhab-
itants remarked that Mr. Crucht de Bonfons
had the freedom of the house at all hours,
while his rival was received only on Sundays.
On the other hand, it was contended that
Madame des Grassins was too shrewd a nego-
tiator to be foiled, be appearances what they
might. And again, it was replied that the Abbe
Cruchot was the most insinuating man in the
world, and as the contest was woman against
monk, it was at least an equal game.
" They are neck andueck," saidya wit of Sau-
mur.
However, some of the older people took a
still different view of the matter, and declared
that old Grandet would never let his fortune go
out of his family.
"Eugenia," said they, "will marry the son
of Mr. Grandet, the rich wine-merchant of
Paris."
" Never believe that," answered the adherents
of the Cruchots and Des Grassins; " the broth-
ers have not met twice in thirty years. Be-
sides, Mr. Grandet, of Paris, has ambitious
views for his son. He is Mayor of his arron-
dissement; Deputy; Colonel in the National
Guard; and Judge of the Tribunal de Com-
merce. He disowns the Grandets of Saumur,
and intends to ally his son with some family
that has been made ducal by the grace of Na-
poleon."
In the beginning of the year 1818, the Cru-
chots gained a signal advantage over the Des
Grassins. The estate of Froidfond, remarkable
for its park, its chateau, its farms, river, ponds,
forests, and worth five millions, was put up for
sale by the young Marquis of Froidfond, who
was in need of money. Lawyer Cruchot, Presi-
dent Cruchot, and Abbe Cruchot succeeded in
preventing the estate from being sold in par-
cels; and the notary subsequently concluded
a golden bargain with the young marquis by
persuading him that it would be greatly to his
advantage to sell the whole to Mr. Grandet,
who was a responsible man, and able to seal
his contract with ready money. So, the beau-
ful estate of Froidfond was conveyed to the
maw of Mr. Grandet, who, to the surprise of all
Saumurfor the transaction proved they had
underestimated the miser's wealthpaid for it,
at a discount, in gold. This affair resounded
from Nantes to Orleans.
Mr. Grandet went to visit his chateau by
means of a country-wagon bound thitherward.
After casting a glance over his new possess-
sions, he returned to Saumur well satisfied with
his bargain, and conceived the magnificent
plan of enlarging the marquisate of Froidfond
by uniting to it his other estates. And, to re-
plenish his now almost exhausted treasury, he
determined to clear his woodlands, and fell the
poplars in his meadows.
Having dwelt thus long on the town and peo-
ple of Saumur, and on some of the characteris-
tics of its richest inhabitants, we must now
take a closer view of the old miser's residence
a bleak, cold, and silent house, situated above
the town, and sheltered by its ruined ramparts.
The two pillars, and the arch forming the
doorway, had, like the house, been construct-
ed of tuf au, a white stone peculiar to the banks
of the Loire, and of so soft a nature that its
average duration is scarcely two centuries. The
scragged and numberless holes fantastically
worn into it by the inclemency of the climate,
gave to the molding and jams of this doorway
the appearance of the vermiculated stone of
France, while its form was not unlike the por-
tal of a jail. Above the arch was a long bas-
relief of hard stone, representing the four sea-
sons,  but the figures were  much  worn  and
ed in other days, but which long use had well-
nigh obliterated.
Through this little grating, wliich served dur-
ing the civil wars for reconnoitering, the curi-
ous might perceive a few decayed steps un-
der a dark and greenish arch that ascended
to a garden inclosed by thick walls, that in
turn, were surrounded and overshadowed by
shrubs and vines. These walls were the ram-
parts of the old tower, and beyond them were
gardens belonging to the adjacent houses.
The largest apartment on the ground-floor of
the mansion was a salle, the entrance to which
was under the arch of the porte-cochere : few
persons are aware of the importance that the in-
habitants of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry attach
to this kind of apartment. It is at once the
ante-chamber, the parlor, the cabinet, the bou-
doir and the eating-room; it is the theatre of
domestic life. Here, twice a year, came the
barber to cut Mr. Grandet's hair ; here entered
the farmers, the curate, the sub-prefect, and the
miller's boy. The floor of this room was
wooden; its two windows opened upon the
street; gray panels, with antique moldings,
wainscoted it from top to bottom ; the ceiling
was of naked beams, also painted gray, and the
spaces between them, which had ence been
white, were now yellow with age.
An old cartel of brass, incrusted with ara-
besques of shell, adorned the rudely sculptured
mantel-piece of white stone. Above, a green-
ish-colored mirror with its edge cut obliquely to
show the thickness of the glass reflected the
rays of light on its gothic frame of carved steel.
Two girandoles of burnished brass stood at the
ends of the mantel and served a double purpose ;
for by unscrewing the branches and fitting the
socket of the main branch into the pedestal, the
latterof blueish marble ornamented with brass
became a candlestick of ordinary use.
The chairs were of an antique form and gar-
nished with tapestry designed from the Fables
of La Fontaine; but the figures were so distorted
by darning and the colors so faded by age, that
unless first informed of the subjects you would
never recognize them. In each corner of this
room stood an encoignurea species of buffet or
side-board, surmounted by a range of dingy
shelves. An old table of marquetry, its top
forming, also, a chess-board, was placed in the
pier between the windows, where hung an oval
barometer in an ebony case, tricked off with
ribbons of gilded wood which, however, the
flies had so wantonly abused that the fact of its
having been once gilded was now problemat-
ical.
On the wall opposite the fire-place, were two
portraits in crayon, said to be likenesses of old
Mr. de La Bertelliere in the dress of a lieuten
ant of the French Guards, and of Madame Gen-
tillet arrayed as a shepherdess.
The windows were hung with curtains of red
taffeta drawn by silk cords, ornamented with
tassels in the form of a church. This luxuri-
ous decoration, so little in harmony with Mr.
Grandet's habits, together with the mirror, the
cartel, the tapestried chairs, and the rosewood
buffets, had been included in the purchase of
the house.
By the window nearest the door, was a straw-
bottomed chair mounted on blocks, from which
Madame Grandet might look out at the passers-
by; a work-chair of discolored cherry-wood
filled the recess, and Eugenia's small arm-chair
stood close by.
Here, for fifteen years, each day had been
quietly passed hy the mother and daughter in
constant sewing, from April to November. On
the first day of the latter month, they changed
their stations to the fire-place, for on that day
Mr. Grandet permitted a fire to be lighted, which
he ordered to be discontinued on and after the
blackened. The bas-relief was surmounted by thirty-first of Marchwithout any regard to the
a jutting plinth, over which sprung a variety temperature of a late spring or an early autumn,
of those chance sown plantsthe yellow pelli-  A foot-stove, supplied from the embers of the
tory, bindweed, convolvolus, plantain, and a
young cherry-tree already quite large.
The door of massive oak, dingy, shrunk, split
in every direction, and apparently very frail,
was nevertheless well sustained by the iron
nails and knobs that ornamented it in symmet-
rical figures. A square, small grating of closely
interwoven iron-bars occupied the centre of the
porte btarde, furnishing an occasion for a ham-
mer which was attached to it by a ring and
struck on the grinning face of an enormous
nail-head. This hammer was of the kind styled
jacquemart by our ancestors, and resembled, in
form, an exclamation point. An antiquary, by
closely examining it, would recognize in it some
traces of a ludicrous figure, which it represent-
kitchen-fire, that Nanon with some skill man
aged to save for them, enabled Madame and
Miss Grandet to support the chilly mornings
and evenings of April and October.
The mother and daughter did all the sewing
for the household, and so entirely did this labor
occupy their time, that Eugenia was compelled,
when she would embroider a collar for her
mother, to abridge her own hours of sleep and
cheat her father out of a candle. All the lights,
as well as the provisions ordinarily used in the
house, were distributed by the miser in daily
portions with his own hands.
Big Nanon was perhaps the only human being
capable of submitting voluntarily to her mas-
ter's despotism, and the whole town envied the
Grandet family her possession. Big Nanon, so
called on account of her height, which was six
feet and over, had lived with old Grandet thirty-
five years; and although her wages were but
sixty livres a year, she was accounted one of
the richest servants in Saumur, for the sixty
livres, annually accumulating through such a
period of time, had enabled her recently to place
four thousand livres at interest in the hands of
Mr. Cruchot. The result of her economy
seemed enormous, and every servant in the
town, seeing that the old sexagenarian had a
provision for her old age, envied her, without
considering the hard service by which it was
acquired.
This woman, when a girl of twenty-two, had
been unable to get employment elsewhere,
owing to the repulsiveness of her appearance
a treatment very unjust on the part of the pub-
lic, for her head would have been admired on
the shoulders of a grenadier of the guards.
Compelled to quit a farm-house that was de-
stroyed by fire, she came to Saumur; and, ani-
mated by a good heart that refuses no service,
she sought eagerly for a home. Father Gran-
det, at that time, was thinking about entering
into the marriage state, and had already began
to arrange his establishment, when he spied
out this huge girl, repelled from door to door.
Being a good judge of corporeal strength from
the character of his own vocation, he at once
foresaw all the labor that could be obtained
from a female formed in the mold of Hercules,
standing on her feet as an oak of sixty sum-
mers stands in the soil, strong in her arms,
square in her back, with hands like a cartman's,
and with a probity as sturdy as her virtue was
frigid. Not the warts that flourished on her
face, nor her brick-bat complexion, nor her
ragged wardrobe dismayed the cooper. He
took the girl into his service, shod, dressed,
fed, paid her, and spoke to her kindly.
Big Nanon wept secret tears of joy at this re-
ception, and she became sincerely attached to
the cooper, who, on his part, turned her capa-
bilities to the best account. Nanon did every-
thing. She cooked, baked, and scrubbed : car-
ried the clothes to the banks of the Loire,
washed them there and brought them back on
her shoulders: rose with the dawn and went to
bed late: prepared the meals for all the men
during harvest: watched the grape gatherers;
defended like a faithful dog the property of her
master; and, full of blind confidence in him,
obeyed his most absurd whims without a mur-
mur.
In the famous year, 1811, Mr. Grandet re-
solved to give Nanon, after twenty years' ser-
vice, his old watch : and this was the only pres-
ent she had ever received: for although he
ceded to her his old shoes, and she could wear
them, it was impossible to regard this tri-
monthly perquisite as a gift, they were so faith-
fully worn before they came into her possession.
Necessity rendered the poor creature avaricious,
and she at length brought this practice of ava-
rice to such perfection that old Grandet loved
her from the bottom of his heart.
Nanon, in short, became part and parcel of
the family. She laughed when her master
laughed; "sorrowed, worked, froze, thawed,
whenhedid. " Come, Nanon, feast yourself !"
he would say to her in those years of plenty
when his trees bent beneath the weight of their
fruit, and his farmers were compelled to feed
their hogs with it. For a country girl, accus-
tomed to ill-treatment, for a poor creature who
had subsisted on meagre charity, the equivocal
laugh of Father Grandet was agenuine sunbeam.
Besides, her simple heart, and scanty brain had
room but for one idea; an idea that for thirty-
five years had superseded all others; and that
was a grateful recollection of the day when she
stood barefooted and in rags at the gate of Mr.
Grandet, and he said to "her kindly: "Well,
beauty, what do you want?"
" I wonder what the Grandets do to Nanon,
that she should be so attached to them?" was an
inquiry often made in Saumur.
Nanon's kitchen, with its grated windows
opening toward the yard, was always clean,
neat, and cold; a genuine miser's kitchen,
where nothing goes to waste. When she had
washed her dishes, put away the remains of the
dinner, and extinguished the fire, she took a
place in the parlor and spun her flax by the
side of her mistress. One candle sufficed them
for the evening. Nanon slept at the end of the
passage-way that united parlor and kitchen, in
a closet lighted by an inner window : her ro-
bust health allowing her to inhabit with impu-
nity this kind of den, whence she could hear