"And yet, you say, he does not occupy it."
"Not he, the villain. I think, however, that the old Cassandre lodges a daughter there, or niece, a lovely child called Colombe or Colombine, or some such name, and keeps her under lock and key in a corner of the Petit Nesle."
"Ah! is it so?" exclaimed the artist, hardly able to breathe, for it was the first time that he had heard his mistress's name; "this usurpation seems to me a shocking abuse. What! this vast hotel to shelter one young girl with her duenna!"
"Whence comest thou, O stranger, not to know that nothing comes to pass more naturally than this abuse,—that we poor clerks should live six together in a wretched garret, while a great nobleman casts this immense property with its gardens, lawns, and tennis-court to the dogs!"
"Ah! there is a tennis-court!"
"Magnificent, my son! magnificent!"
"But this Hôtel de Nesle, you say, is actually the property of King François I."
"To be sure: but what would you have King François I. do with this property of his?"
"Why, give it to others, as the provost doesn't occupy it."
"Very good: then go and ask it of him for yourself."