human
There! she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end of Germain's account of the reception--
gpt
Presented to the Court! Lecour, when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoning the apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, did I not tell you my son was baked of Sèvres and not of clay? At the Court of France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes, Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say to _that_, Lecour?
human
That for the moment you are General Montcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalm afterwards had his Quebec.
gpt
Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France.
human
I do not dispute that.
gpt
Let us proceed with the letter,
human
Ah, she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time,
gpt
Germain needs three thousand livres.
human
What!
gpt
Only three thousand.
human
But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft was for nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carry on the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we were seigneurs and not peasants.
gpt
Certainly we are not peasants--_citizens_, if you please: anybody will tell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who are _noble_, Lecour. Why should _we_ not make ourselves seigneurs? Who is it but the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in the manor-houses to-day? That is my plan.
human
Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain François Xavier Lecour, the peasant.
gpt
Well, François Xavier Lecour, the peasant, _my_ son, the noble, must have these livres.
human
Will you have the poor boy disgraced in the act of doing you credit? Look at me, unnatural father, and reflect that your child is to experience from you his earliest wrong.
gpt
Yes, she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks.
human
Your wife will sell her wardrobe and her dowry--little enough it was--for my son shall not want while he has a mother, and that mother owns a stitch.
gpt
I will go as far as a thousand. It is all it is worth.
human
A skinflint, forsooth, at a thousand livres!
gpt
Yes, she cried in a fresh flood of tears.
human
A wretch, a miser. You are unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a favourite of kings.