Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite retired from business.  Old age was coming on apace; they were both past fifty and were weary enough of the struggle.  In face of their ill fortune, they were afraid of being ultimately ruined if they obstinately persisted in the fight.  Their sons, by disappointing their expectations, had dealt them the final blow.  Now that they despaired of ever being enriched by them, they were anxious to make some little provision for old age.  They retired with forty thousand francs at the utmost.  This sum provided an annual income of two thousand francs, just sufficient to live in a small way in the provinces.  Fortunately, they were by themselves, having succeeded in marrying their daughters Marthe and Sidonie, the former of whom resided at Marseilles and the latter in Paris.

After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to take up their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired traders, but they dared not do so.  Their income was too small; they were afraid that they would cut but a poor figure there.  So, as a sort of compromise, they took apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street which separates the old quarter from the new one.  As their abode was one of the row of houses bordering the old quarter, they still lived among the common people; nevertheless, they could see the town of the richer classes from their windows, so that they were just on the threshold of the promised land.

Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of three large rooms—­dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom.  The first floor was occupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella manufacturer, who had a shop on the ground floor.  The house, which was narrow and by no means deep, had only two storeys.  Felicite moved into it with a bitter pang.  In the provinces, to live in another person’s house is an avowal of poverty.  Every family of position at Plassans has a house of its own, landed property being very cheap there.  Pierre kept the purse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any embellishments.  The old furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice, without even being repaired.  Felicite, however, who keenly felt the necessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give fresh polish to all the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some of the furniture which was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned the frayed velvet of the arm-chairs.

The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house, was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom of this large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouring building.  As no strangers ever went into the bedroom, Felicite had stowed all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a bedstead, wardrobe, secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two cradles, one perched atop of the other, a sideboard whose doors were missing,