However, she is on good terms with the curate of her parish, and is very particular about the arrangement of her dinner on the days she honours him with an invitation to her table.

She seems to consider him a subaltern, very useful to her salvation, and capable of opening the gate of paradise for her.
Such as she is, she is shunned like the plague.

Everybody dreads her loud voice, her terrible indiscretion, and the frankness of speech which she affects, in order to have the right of saying the most unpleasant things which pass through her head.

Of all her family, there only remains her granddaughter, whose father died very young.
Of a fortune originally large, and partly restored by the indemnity allowed by the government, but since administered in the most careless manner, she has only been able to preserve an income of twenty thousand francs, which diminishes day by day.

She is, also, proprietor of the pretty little house which she inhabits, situated near the Invalides, between a rather narrow court-yard, and a very extensive garden.
So circumstanced, she considers herself the most unfortunate of God's creatures, and passes the greater part of her life complaining of her poverty.