Chapter 166 Five Basques and Nicolette

He has some theories.Here's one: "When a man loves some women and he has a wife himself, he doesn't care much about her, and she's ugly, bad-tempered, legal, and has every right According to the law, if he is jealous when necessary, there is only one way for him to get rid of troubles and gain peace, and that is to hand over the family property to his wife. Declare abdication in exchange for freedom. Then, the wife will have something to do, if Drunkenly managing cash until his hands are full of patina. Directing tenants, training long-term workers, calling legal advisors, presiding over notary meetings, persuading litigants, visiting famous criminal masters, attending court, drafting contracts, dictating contracts, thinking that he is in charge and then Master, sell, buy, deal with problems, give orders, guarantee and be involved, contract and break contracts, sell, lease, transfer, arrange, displace, accumulate, waste. She does stupid things and is happy , self-satisfied, she has consolation. When her husband despises her, she finds satisfaction in ruining his fortune." This theory was practiced by M. Gillenormand and became his history.His wife, the one he married later, took care of the property for him, so that on the day he became a widower, he had just enough left over to live on, and he mortgaged almost everything to get about fifteen thousand francs. annual interest, three-quarters of which have to be wiped out with him.He didn't hesitate, because he didn't have to think much about leaving an inheritance.Moreover, he had seen that inheritances could be at risk, such as being converted into "communal property"; "It's all that Rue de Cancompois trick!" he used to say.His house in Rue de la Passione, as we have said, was his own.He often uses two servants, "one male and one female".Monsieur Gillenormand changed his name when the servant came in.To the servants he calls by their province: Nimes, Franche-Comté, Poitou, Picardy.His last valet was a fat, panty man of fifty-five who couldn't run twenty paces, but, because he was born in Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him a Basque.As for the maids in his family, they are all called Nicolette (even Mama Manon, whom we will talk about later).One day a cook came, a famous cook, tall, of the portly type. "How much do you want to earn a month?" "Thirty francs." "What's your name?" "Olympi." "I'll give you fifty francs for your salary, but your name must be Nicolette. "