Careful and very shrewd in managing his secret prodigalities, he disputed all purchases as only churchmen can dispute.
Instead of taking infinite precautions against being cheated, the sly monk kept patterns and samples, had the agreements reduced to writing, and warned those who forwarded his wines or his provisions that if they fell short of the mark in any way he should refuse to accept their consignments.
Jean, who had charge of the fruit-room, was trained to keep fresh the finest fruits grown in the department; so that Rigou ate pears and apples and sometimes grapes, at Easter.
No prophet regarded as a God was ever more blindly obeyed than was Rigou in his own home.

A mere motion of his black eyelashes could plunge his wife, Annette, and Jean into the deepest anxiety.

He held his three slaves by the multiplicity of their many duties, which were like a chain in his hands.

These poor creatures were under the perpetual yoke of some ordered duty, with an eye always on them; but they had come to take a sort of pleasure in accomplishing these tasks, and did not suffer under them.

All three had the comfort and well-being of that one man before their minds as the sole end and object of all their thoughts.
Annette was (since 1795) the tenth pretty girl in Rigou's service, and he expected to go down to his grave with relays of such servants.
Brought to him at sixteen, she would be sent away at nineteen.