the elder, Francois, a young man of twenty-three, and the younger, a sickly little fellow scarcely six years old, named Silvere.  The death of his wife, whom he adored, proved a thunderbolt to Mouret.  He dragged on his existence for another year, neglecting his business and losing all the money he had saved.  Then, one morning, he was found hanging in a cupboard where Ursule’s dresses were still suspended.  His elder son, who had received a good commercial training, took a situation in the house of his uncle Rougon, where he replaced Aristide, who had just left.

Rougon, in spite of his profound hatred for the Macquarts, gladly welcomed this nephew, whom he knew to be industrious and sober.  He was in want of a youth whom he could trust, and who would help him to retrieve his affairs.  Moreover, during the time of Mouret’s prosperity, he had learnt to esteem the young couple, who knew how to make money, and thus he had soon become reconciled with his sister.  Perhaps he thought he was making Francois some compensation by taking him into his business; having robbed the mother, he would shield himself from remorse by giving employment to the son; even rogues make honest calculations sometimes.  It was, however, a good thing for him.  If the house of Rougon did not make a fortune at this time, it was certainly through no fault of that quiet, punctilious youth, Francois, who seemed born to pass his life behind a grocer’s counter, between a jar of oil and a bundle of dried cod-fish.  Although he physically resembled his mother, he inherited from his father a just if narrow mind, with an instinctive liking for a methodical life and the safe speculations of a small business.

Three months after his arrival, Pierre, pursuing his system of compensation, married him to his young daughter Marthe,[*] whom he did not know how to dispose of.  The two young people fell in love with each other quite suddenly, in a few days.  A peculiar circumstance had doubtless determined and enhanced their mutual affection.  There was a remarkably close resemblance between them, suggesting that of brother and sister.  Francois inherited, through Ursule, the face of his grandmother Adelaide.  Marthe’s case was still more curious; she was an equally exact portrait of Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of his mother’s features distinctly marked; the physical resemblance had, as it were, passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter.  The similarity between husband and wife went, however, no further than their faces; if the worthy son of a steady matter-of-fact hatter was distinguishable in Francois, Marthe showed the nervousness and mental weakness of her grandmother.  Perhaps it was this combination of physical resemblance and moral dissimilarity which threw the young people into each other’s arms.  From 1840 to 1844 they had three children.  Francois remained in his uncle’s employ until the latter retired.  Pierre had desired to sell him the business, but the young man knew what small chance there was of making a fortune in trade at Plassans; so he declined the offer and repaired to Marseilles, where he established himself with his little savings.