Honoré de Balzac

“ A physiologist, beholding the cushion of bare flesh enveloping the last vertebra and compressing this man’s hind brain, and, above all, hearing the clear, shrill voice which contrasted so ludicrously with his chest and shoulders, would have perfectly understood why this big, stout, thickset farmer adored his only son, and why, perhaps, he had waited so long for him, as the child’s name of Désiré sufficiently explained. In short, if love, by betraying a rich organization, is, in man, a promise of the grandest things, then philosophers will understand the causes of Minoret’s incapacity. ”

“ Whilst pronouncing these last words, Goupil wore so comical a smile and gave it so clear a meaning, that the heirs suspected the clerk of having been taken in by the cunning of the justice of the peace. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as insignificant as a tax-collector ought to be, and as unimportant as a sensible woman could wish, crushed his co-heir Massin by: “I told you so!” ”

“ Besides, the curé of Nemours is the most honest man in the world, he would give his last shirt to a beggar; he is incapable of a mean action; and dissipating an inheritance is—”
“But it is robbery,” said Madame Massin.
“It’s worse!” cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by his garrulous cousin’s remark.
“I know,” replied Madame Massin, “that the Abbé Chaperon, although a priest, is an honest man; but he is capable of anything for the poor! He will have bored, and bored, and bored beneath my uncle, and the doctor will have sunk into bigotry. ”

“ A man who has never believed in anything and who had principles! Oh! we are all done for. My husband is all upset about it”
Madame Massin, whose words were like so many arrows stinging her big cousin, made him walk along, in spite of his embonpoint, as rapidly as herself to the great astonishment of the people who were going to mass. She wanted to overtake this uncle Minoret and point him out to the postmaster.
On the Gâtinais side, Nemours is overlooked by a hill, along which extends the road of Montargis and the Loing. ”

“ Then you have forgotten the gift Ursule gave the church as thanks to the curé for having prepared her for her first Communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather gave it back to her, but doubled. You men notice nothing! When I heard these particulars, I said, ‘Good-bye our hopes! all is over!’ An uncle with an inheritance does not act like this purposelessly, toward a little sniveller picked out of the street.”
“Bah! cousin,” replied the postmaster, “perhaps the old man is taking Ursule accidentally to church. It is fine, and our uncle is going for a walk.” ”

“ Although he had never given a thought to God or the devil, and was as practical a materialist as he was a practical farmer, practical egotist, and practical miser, Minoret had, up till then, enjoyed unmixed happiness, if one may consider a purely material life as happiness. ”

“ His manner had the merciless humility of a usurer, whose line of conduct rests upon fixed principles. He spoke like a man who suffers from loss of voice. In short, in order to portray him, it suffices to say that he employed his eldest daughter and his wife to make copies of the trials.
Madame Crémière was a stout woman with doubtful yellow hair, a complexion covered with freckles, a little too tightly squeezed into her dresses, was connected with Madame Dionis, and passed as well-informed because she read novels. ”

“ The Nemours stage requires a large number of horses, it goes toward Paris as far as Fontainebleau and runs beyond the Montargis and Montereau roads; on both sides the stage is slow, and the sands of the Montargis road warrant that chimerical third horse which is always paid for and never seen. So a man built like Minoret, as rich as Minoret, and at the head of such an establishment could call himself without antiphrasis, the master of Nemours. ”

“ At this moment, Massin-Levrault junior, clerk of the justice of the peace, joined his wife, bringing with him Madame Crémière, wife of the tax-gatherer of Nemours. This person, one of the sharpest citizens in the little town, had the physiognomy of a Tartar; little round eyes like sloes, under a low forehead, woolly hair, an oily skin, big ears without edges, a mouth with hardly any lip, and a scanty beard. ”