The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived.  The firm of Puech and Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp.  The young man then negotiated the match with prudent skill.  He was received, if not as a deliverer, at least as a necessary and acceptable expedient.  The marriage agreed upon, he turned his attention to the sale of the ground.  The owner of the Jas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate, had made him repeated offers.  A low, thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates.  Pierre speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratify his caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land.  It was double its value.  Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant, pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that his mother would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouques had lived from father to son for nearly two centuries.  But all the time that he was seemingly holding back he was really making preparations for the sale.  Certain doubts had arisen in his mind.  According to his own brutal logic, the property belonged to him; he had the right to dispose of it as he chose.  Beneath this assurance, however, he had vague presentiments of legal complications.  So he indirectly consulted a lawyer of the Faubourg.

He learnt some fine things from him.  According to the lawyer, his hands were completely tied.  His mother alone could alienate the property, and he doubted whether she would.  But what he did not know, what came as a heavy blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those young wolves, had claims on the estate.  What! they would despoil him, rob him, the legitimate child!  The lawyer’s explanations were clear and precise, however; Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under the common property system; but as the whole fortune consisted of land, the young woman, according to law, again came into possession of everything at her husband’s death.  Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had duly acknowledged their children when declaring their birth for registration, and thus these children were entitled to inherit from their mother.  For sole consolation, Pierre learnt that the law reduced the share of illegitimate children in favour of the others.  This, however, did not console him at all.  He wanted to have everything.  He would not have shared ten sous with Ursule and Antoine.

This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon, which he scanned with a singularly thoughtful air.  He soon recognised that a shrewd man must always keep the law on his side.  And this is what he devised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose suspicions he was afraid of arousing.  He knew how to turn his mother round his finger.  One fine morning he took her to a notary and made her sign a deed of sale.  Provided she were left the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, Adelaide would have sold all Plassans.  Besides, Pierre assured her an annual income of six hundred