Statistics are silent as to the startling number of working men of
twenty who marry cooks of between forty and fifty enriched by robbery.
We shudder to think of the result of such unions from the three points
of view of increasing crime, degeneracy of the race, and miserable
households.
As to the mere financial mischief that results from domestic
peculation, that too is immense from a political point of view. Life
being made to cost double, any superfluity becomes impossible in most
households. Now superfluity means half the trade of the world, as it
is half the elegance of life. Books and flowers are to many persons as
necessary as bread.
Lisbeth, well aware of this dreadful scourge of Parisian households,
determined to manage Valerie's, promising her every assistance in the
terrible scene when the two women had sworn to be like sisters. So she
had brought from the depths of the Vosges a humble relation on her
mother's side, a very pious and honest soul, who had been cook to the
Bishop of Nancy. Fearing, however, her inexperience of Paris ways, and
yet more the evil counsel which wrecks such fragile virtue, at first
Lisbeth always went to market with Mathurine, and tried to teach her
what to buy. To know the real prices of things and command the
salesman's respect; to purchase unnecessary delicacies, such as fish,
only when they were cheap; to be well informed as to the price current
of groceries and provisions, so as to buy when prices are low in
anticipation of a rise,--all this housekeeping skill is in Paris
essential to domestic economy.
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