in two years of each other; and soon after
that, Rouget got the better, as we may say, of his wife, for she died
at the beginning of the year 1799. So he had vineyards and he bought
farms, he owned iron-works and he sold fleeces. His well-beloved son
was stupidly incapable of doing anything; but the father destined him
for the state in life of a land proprietor and allowed him to grow up
in wealth and silliness, certain that the lad would know as much as
the wisest if he simply let himself live and die. After 1799, the
cipherers of Issoudun put, at the very least, thirty thousand francs'
income to the doctor's credit. From the time of his wife's death he
led a debauched life, though he regulated it, so to speak, and kept it
within the closed doors of his own house. This man, endowed with "strength
of character," died in 1805, and God only knows what the townspeople
of Issoudun said about him then, and how many anecdotes they related
of his horrible private life. Jean-Jacques Rouget, whom his father,
recognizing his stupidity, had latterly treated with severity,
remained a bachelor for certain reasons, the explanation of which will
form an important part of this history. His celibacy was partly his
father's fault, as we shall see later.

Meantime, it is well to inquire into the results of the secret
vengeance the doctor took on a daughter whom he did not recognize as
his own, but who, you must understand at once, was legitimately his.
Not a person in Issoudun had noticed one of those capricious facts
that make the whole subject of generation a vast abyss in which
science flounders. Agathe bore a strong likeness to the mother of
Doctor Rouget. Just as gout is said to skip a generation and pass from
grandfather to grandson, resemblances not uncommonly follow the same
course.

In like manner, the eldest of Agathe's children, who physically
resembled his mother, had the moral qualities of his grandfather,
Doctor Rouget. We will leave the solution of this problem to the
twentieth century, with a fine collection of microscopic animalculae;
our descendants may perhaps write as much nonsense as the scientific
schools of the nineteenth century have uttered on this mysterious and
perplexing question.

Agathe Rouget attracted the admiration of everyone by a face destined,
like that of Mary, the mother of our Lord, to continue ever virgin,
even after marriage. Her portrait, still to be seen in the atelier of
Bridau, shows a perf