"She told me you had, like all honest
bourgeoises, your water-carrier, who furnished every day six buckets
of water."
"Eliza told you the truth again. It is still the same water-carrier
whom we employed when we lived in the Faubourg St. Honore; he is a
faithful and honest man; why, then should I withdraw this little
patronage from him?"
"But you pay him no more for his water, now that you are the
emperor's mother, than you did when you were a poor widow with nine
children."
"God makes the water flow, and it is the same now as then. Why
should I, then, pay more for it?"
"Eliza told me, also," added the emperor, dwelling with singular
perseverance on the same subject, "that, instead of collecting a
library, and buying the books you read, you have subscribed to the
bookseller Renard's circulating library."
"There are very few books that deserve the honor of being bought,"
said madame, in a dignified tone.
"And is it true, too," asked the emperor, "that you have the books
brought by the bookseller's clerk to you every week the year round,
and that you have the same exchanged by your servants during only
New-Year's week, in order thereby to avoid giving a New-Year's
present to the clerk?"
"It is true," said madame, calmly. "This clerk is not poor, nor the
father of a family; I avoid, therefore, giving him the money which I
prefer giving to poor men.
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