As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his
wife, being jealous of the uncle's liberality to his two nieces, took
her ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be
to them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so
much. The doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at
the school of Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth
class.

Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
"rated without appeal" by the doctor within two months of his arrival
in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount
of intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his
heirs, and thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor
made a pretext of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the
little Ursula to avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing
his doors to them. He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he
got up late; he had returned to his native place for the very purpose
of finding rest in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be
natural, and his relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly
visits on Sundays from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he
tried to put a stop by saying: "Don't come and see me unless you want
something."

The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over