The woman knew the secrets of dear mistress's toilet; she alone could put dear mistress to sleep at night with her gossip, and get her up in the morning with her flattery; to the day of dear mistress's death the maid never could see the slightest change in her, and when dear mistress lay in her coffin, she doubtless thought she had never seen her looking so well.
The annual pickings of Gaubertin and Mademoiselle Cochet, their wages and perquisites, became so large that the most affectionate relative could not possibly have been more devoted than they to their kindly mistress.

There is really no describing how a swindler cossets his dupe.
A mother is not so tender nor so solicitous for a beloved daughter as the practitioner of tartuferie for his milch cow.

What brilliant success attends the performance of Tartufe behind the closed doors of a home! It is worth more than friendship.

Moliere died too soon; he would otherwise have shown us the misery of Orgon, wearied by his family, harassed by his children, regretting the blandishments of Tartufe, and thinking to himself, "Ah, those were the good times!" During the last eight years of her life the mistress of Les Aigues received only thirty thousand francs of the fifty thousand really yielded by the estate.

Gaubertin had reached the same administrative results as his predecessor, though farm rents and territorial products were notably increased between 1791 and 1815,--not to speak of Madame's continual purchases.