Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his
means on a certain Madame Firmiani, was now reduced to teaching
mathematics for a living, while awaiting his uncle's death, not daring
to let him know of his dissipations. This distant cousin, a sort of
Charles Moor, was not ashamed to give this fatal news to the old
gentleman as he sat by his fire, digesting a profuse provincial
dinner.
[*] The "Bande Noire" was a mysterious association of speculators,
whose object was to buy in landed estates, cut them up, and sell
them off in small parcels to the peasantry, or others.
But heirs cannot always rid themselves of uncles as easily as they
would like to. Thanks to his obstinacy, this particular uncle refused
to believe the story, and came out victorious from the attack of
indigestion produced by his nephew's biography. Some shocks affect the
heart, others the head; but in this case the cousin's blow fell on the
digestive organs and did little harm, for the old man's stomach was
sound. Like a true disciple of Saint Thomas, Monsieur de Bourbonne
came to Paris, unknown to Octave, resolved to make full inquiries as
to his nephew's insolvency. Having many acquaintances in the faubourg
Saint-Germain, among the Listomeres, the Lenoncourts, and the
Vandenesses, he heard so much gossip, so many facts and falsities,
about Madame Firmiani that he resolved to be presented to her under
the name of de Rouxellay, that of his estate in Touraine.
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