His love of family life had made him renounce that of a powerful man.
Only the considerate treatment of his wife, who surrounded him with assiduous care as though wishing to compensate for their long separations, made the situation bearable.

Furthermore, his conscience was enjoying a certain satisfaction in being a land-father, taking much interest in the life of his son who was beginning to prepare to enter the institute, looking over his books, and aiding him in understanding the notes.
But even these pleasures were not of long duration.

The family gatherings in his home or at his relatives' bored him unspeakably; so did the conversations with his cousins and nephews about profits and business deals, or about the defects of centralized tyranny.

According to them, all the calamities of heaven and earth were coming from Madrid.

The governor of the province was the "Consul of Spain." These merchants interrupted their criticisms only to listen in religious silence to Wagner's music banged out on the piano by the girls of the family.