It's your own fault.

You ought to have bought me." Felicite understood this so well that she replied: "I know you have accused us of being hard upon you, because you imagine we are in comfortable circumstances; but you are mistaken, my dear brother; we are poor people; we have never been able to act towards you as our hearts would have desired." She hesitated a moment, and then continued: "If it were absolutely necessary in some serious contingency, we might perhaps be able to make a sacrifice; but, truly, we are very poor, very poor!" Macquart pricked up his ears.

"I have them!" he thought.

Then, without appearing to understand his sister-in-law's indirect offer, he detailed the wretchedness of his life in a doleful manner, and spoke of his wife's death and his children's flight.

Felicite, on her side, referred to the crisis through which the country was passing, and declared that the Republic had completely ruined them.