chunk: Clotilde and Pascal eventually begin a romance, much to the chagrin of his mother Félicité. (She is less concerned about the incestuous nature of the relationship than by the fact that the two are living together out of wedlock.) Félicité wants to keep the family secrets buried at any cost, including several family skeletons living nearby: her alcoholic brother-in-law Antoine Macquart and her centenarian mother-in-law Tante Dide. When Clotilde's brother Maxime asks Clotilde to come to Paris, Félicité sees this as an opportunity to control Pascal and access his papers to destroy them.
  Pascal suffers a series of heart attacks, and Clotilde is not able to return from Paris before he dies. Félicité immediately burns all of Pascal's scholarly work and the documents she considers incriminating. The novel, and the entire 20-novel series, concludes with the birth of Pascal and Clotilde's son and the hope placed on him for the future of the family.