Her intelligence was far superior to that of the girls of her own station and education.

Evil tongues asserted that her mother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during the early period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis de Carnavant, a young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter.

In fact, Felicite had the hands and feet of a marchioness, and, in this respect, did not appear to belong to that class of workers from which she was descended.
Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of the Faubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter in a state of astonishment for more than a month.

She let people gossip, however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with strange smiles.

Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon for a husband as one would choose an accomplice.