She gave them what they needed, and what more could they want?
The fact was she felt weak and troubled before children.

But within her a powerful and unknown voice had arisen, and the hour was not far distant when the bitter wave of her regrets was to overflow and be made manifest.
She did not like Savinien, her nephew, and kept all her sweetness for the son of one of their old neighbors in the Rue Neuve-Coquenard, a small haberdasher, who had not been able to get on, but continued humbly to sell thread and needles to the thrifty folks of the neighborhood.
The haberdasher, Mother Delarue, as she was called, had remained a widow after one year of married life.

Pierre, her boy, had grown up under the shadow of the bakery, the cradle of the Desvarennes's fortunes.
On Sundays the mistress would give him a gingerbread or a cracknel, and amuse herself with his baby prattle.

She did not lose sight of him when she removed to the Rue Vivienne.

Pierre had entered the elementary school of the neighborhood, and by his precocious intelligence and exceptional application, had not been long in getting to the top of his class.