After talking with the mayor, the shrewd old man made visits on various pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom he mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would receive her friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those wily Norman minds, he replied to the questions put to him on the nature of Madame de Dey's illness in a manner that hoodwinked the community. He related to a gouty old dame, that Madame de Dey had almost died of a sudden attack of gout in the stomach, but had been relieved by a remedy which the famous doctor, Tronchin, had once recommended to her,--namely, to apply the skin of a freshly-flayed hare on the pit of the stomach, and to remain in bed without making the slightest movement for two days. This tale had prodigious success, and the doctor of Carentan, a royalist "in petto," increased its effect by the manner in which he discussed the remedy. Nevertheless, suspicions had taken too strong a root in the minds of some obstinate persons, and a few philosophers, to be thus dispelled; so that all Madame de Dey's usual visitors came eagerly and early that evening to watch her countenance: some out of true friendship, but most of them to detect the secret of her seclusion. They found the countess seated as usual, at the corner of the great fireplace in her salon, a room almost as unpretentious as the other salons in Carentan; for, in order not to wound the narrow view of her guests, she denied herself the luxuries to which she was accustomed. The floor of her reception room was not even waxed, the walls were still hung with dingy tapestries; she used the country furniture, burned tallow candles, and followed the customs of the town,--adopting provincial life, and not shrinking from its pettiness or its many disagreeable privations. Knowing, however, that her guests would pardon luxuries if provided for their own comfort, she neglected nothing which conduced to their personal enjoyment, and gave them, more especially, excellent dinners.