"Le petit Pean" had
married a young wife, Mademoiselle Desmeloizes, Canadian like himself,
well born, and famed for beauty, vivacity, and wit. Bigot, who was near
sixty, became her accepted lover; and the fortune of Pean was made. His
first success seems to have taken him by surprise. He had bought as a
speculation a large quantity of grain, with money of the King lent him
by the Intendant. Bigot, officially omnipotent, then issued an order
raising the commodity to a price far above that paid by Pean, who thus
made a profit of fifty thousand crowns.[559] A few years later his
wealth was estimated at from two to four million francs. Madame Pean
became a power in Canada, the dispenser of favors and offices; and all
who sought opportunity to rob the King hastened to pay her their court.
Pean, jilted by his own wife, made prosperous love to the wife of his
partner, Penisseault; who, though the daughter of a Montreal tradesman,
had the air of a woman of rank, and presided with dignity and grace at a
hospitable board where were gathered the clerks of Cadet and other
lesser lights of the administrative hierarchy. It was often honored by
the presence of the Chevalier de Levis, who, captivated by the charms of
the hostess, condescended to a society which his friends condemned as
unworthy of his station. He succeeded Pean in the graces of Madame
Penisseault, and after the war took her with him to France; while the
aggrieved husband found consolation in the wives of the small
functionaries under his orders.
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