As he slipped the paper into his pocket, he thought to himself, "Now, let the young wolves ask me to render an account.

I will tell them the old woman has squandered everything.

They will never dare to go to law with me about it." A week afterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a plough had turned up the vegetable beds; the Fouques' enclosure, in accordance with young Rougon's wish, was about to become a thing of the past.

A few months later, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old market-gardener's house, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married Felicite Puech with as little delay as possible.

Felicite was a short, dark woman, such as one often meets in Provence.