" Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the liberals of
Nemours.
The doctor's three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is
quite unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in
little towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son's
birthday, a ball during the carnival, another on the anniversary of
his marriage, to all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of
Nemours. The collector received his relations and friends twice a
year. The clerk of the court, too poor, he said, to fling himself into
such extravagance, lived in a small way in a house standing half-way
down the Grand'Rue, the ground-floor of which was let to his sister,
the letter-postmistress of Nemours, a situation she owed to the
doctor's kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of the year these
three families did meet together frequently, in the houses of friends,
in the public promenades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a
Sunday in the square, as on this occasion; so that one way and another
they met nearly every day.
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