Arsene was the niece of his housekeeper, whose place the girl took by request of the latter on her deathbed.
In 1791, just about the time that the Abbe Niseron offered his house as an asylum to Rigou and his brother Jean, the little girl played one of her mischievous but innocent tricks.

She was playing with Arsene and some other children at a game which consists in hiding an object which the rest seek, and crying out, "You burn!" or "You freeze!" according as the searchers approach or leave the hidden article.

Little Genevieve took it into her head to hide the bellows in Arsene's bed.

The bellows could not be found, and the game came to an end; Genevieve was taken home by her mother and forgot to put the bellows back on the nail.
Arsene and her aunt searched more than a week for them; then they stopped searching and managed to do without them, the old abbe blowing his fire with an air-cane made in the days when air-canes were the fashion,--a fashion which was no doubt introduced by some courtier of the reign of Henri III.

At last, about a month before her death, the housekeeper, after a dinner at which the Abbe Mouchon, the Niseron family, and the curate of Soulanges were present, returned to her jeremiades about the loss of the bellows.
"Why! they've been these two weeks in Arsene's bed!" cried the little one, with a peal of laughter.