Butcher Lafolie slept. Near him slept his son, tall and strong like his father, and with ruddy cheeks. The butcher’s boy, with his head in his hands, was asleep on the marble slab, with his hair dangling among the spread-out joints of meat. Behind her glazed partition at the entrance of the shop sat Madame Lafolie, bolt upright, but with heavy eyes weighed down by sleep. She was a fat woman, with a huge bosom, her flesh saturated with the blood of beasts. The whole family had a look of brutal, yet masterly, power, an air of barbaric royalty. With his quick glance shifting from one to the other, M. Guitrel stood watching them for a long while. Again and again he turned with special interest towards the master, the colossus whose purpled cheeks were barred by a long reddish moustache, and who, now that his eyes were shut, showed on his temples the little wrinkles that speak of cunning. Then, surfeited of the sight of this violent, crafty brute, and gripping his old umbrella under his arm, he crossed his great-coat over his chest once more, and continued his way. He was quite in good spirits once more, as he thought to himself: “Eight thousand, three hundred and twenty-five francs last year. One thousand, nine hundred and six this year. Abbé Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, owes ten thousand, two hundred and thirty-one francs to Lafolie the butcher, who is by no means an easy-going creditor. Abbé Lantaigne will not be a bishop.” For a long while he had been aware that M. Lantaigne was in financial straits, and that the college was heavily in debt. To-day his servant Joséphine had just informed him that Lafolie was showing his teeth and talking of suing the seminary and the archbishopric for debt. Trotting along with his mincing step, M. Guitrel murmured: “M. Lantaigne will never be a bishop. He is honest enough, but he is a bad manager. Now a bishopric is just an administration. Bossuet said so in express terms when he was delivering the funeral oration of the Prince de Condé.” And in mentally recalling the horrible face of Lafolie the butcher, M. Guitrel felt no repugnance whatever. IX