She would have thought it a mortal sin to make a single gesture, or give a single glance, or say a single word which would reveal to others her real opinion of the imbecile Baudoyer.

She even professed to obey passively all his wishes.

But her ears were receptive of many things; she thought them over, weighed and compared them in the solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly of men and events that at the time when our history begins she was the hidden oracle of the two functionaries, her husband and father, who had, unconsciously, come to do nothing whatever without consulting her.

Old Saillard would say, innocently, "Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine ?" But Baudoyer, too great a fool not to be puffed up by the false reputation the quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him, denied his wife's cleverness all the while that he was making use of it.
Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money.

Enlightened by self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far better than the minister understood him.