He was suspicious, as became a petty Government official, and replied sullenly.

She offered him money--before the landlord, unhappily--and his refusal was now unnecessarily bitter.

She turned away sadly, but Madame Marie had been roused by the official's churlishness, and for once the placid little body spoke in that vulgar tongue which needs no interpretation.

She asked the fellow if he knew to whom he had been impolite, to whom he had refused a kindly act.
"You--you, a habitant road-watcher, a pound-keeper, a village tax-collector, or something less!" she said.

"You to refuse the great singer Madelinette Lajeunesse, the wife of the Seigneur of Pontiac, the greatest patriot in the land; to refuse her whom princes are glad to serve--" She stopped and gasped her indignation.
A hundred speeches and a hundred pounds could not have done so much.