At the end of the second year after his arrival La Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised his real purposes by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary economy.

To the great satisfaction of his heirs he became a miser.

Without fawning or wheedling, solely by the influence of her devotion and solicitude, La Bougival, who was forty-three years old at the time this tale begins, was the housekeeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which the whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant.

She was called La Bougival from the admitted impossibility of applying to her person the name that actually belonged to her, Antoinette--for names and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
The doctor's miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an object.

From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased subscribing to periodicals.