In the neighborhood around the Temple, there lives a curious character. M. Gillenormand, vestige of another age. His ninety years have in no way diminished his vigor. He walks straight, drinks with gusto, speaks loudly, sleeps soundly, snores vigorously. He has given up women but not without some lingering regrets. When a former maid in the house tries to claim he is the father of her baby boy, he flatly denies it, but he pays for the child's keep just the same, and for that of his little brother later on.
He is authoritarian and cannot brook contradiction. He still beats his servants in the grand old tradition and even punishes his fifty-year-old unmarried daughter. He has retained the Enlightenment's cynicism about the world. Europe, to him, is a civilized version of the jungle. Of course, he finds contemporary society particularly repulsive. He declares peremptorily: "The Revolution is a bunch of rascals."
M. Gillenormand has outlived most of his relatives. He still has, as we have just mentioned, an old maid daughter, a lackluster creature. In her youth, she dreamed of a rich husband, prominence, an imposing butler. Now she has turned into a prude and a bigot. She defends with a heavy fortress of clothing a non-threatened virtue. She fills her day with religious practices, says special prayers, belongs to the Association of the Virgin, and venerates the Sacred Heart. She is, moreover, abominably stupid.
