“Come, grandfather,” said Achille Pigoult, “brush up your memory; and you, gentlemen, not a word, not a gesture. I want to be clear in my own mind. I have not the honor to know the client for whom I am asked to draw certain deeds, and I must, as a matter of legal regularity, have him identified.”
While his son spoke, the old man was evidently straining his memory. My father, fortunately, has a nervous twitching of the face, which increased under the fixed gaze his _certifier_ fastened upon him.
“Hey! _parbleu_! I have it!” he cried. “Monsieur is the Marquise de Sallenauve, whom we used to call the ‘Grimacer,’ and who would now be the owner of the Chateau d’Arcis if, instead of wandering off, like the other fools, into emigration, he had stayed at home and married his pretty cousin.”
“You are still _sans-culotte_, it seems,” said the marquis, laughing.
“Messieurs,” said the notary, gravely, “the proof I had arranged for myself is conclusive. This proof, together with the title-deeds and documents Monsieur le marquis has shown to me, and which he deposits in my hands, together with the certificate of identity sent to me by Mother Marie-des-Anges, who cannot, under the rules of her Order, come to my office, are sufficient for the execution of the deeds which I have here--already prepared. The presence of two witnesses is required for one of them. Monsieur Bricheteau will, of course, be the witness on your side and on the other my father, if agreeable to you; it is an honor that, as I think, belongs to him of right, for, as one may say, this matter has revived his memory.”
“Very good, messieurs, let us proceed,” said Jacques Bricheteau, heartily.
The notary sat down at his desk; the rest of us sat in a circle around him, and the reading of the first document began. Its purport was to establish, authentically, the recognition made by Francois-Henri-Pantaleon Dumirail, Marquis de Sallenauve, of me, his son. But in the course of the reading a difficulty came up. Notarial deeds must, under pain of being null and void, state the domicile of all contracting parties. Now, where was my father’s domicile? This part had been left in blank by the notary, who now insisted on filling it before proceeding farther.