Monsieur Bridau dies relatively young, Philippe, who is the elder and his mother's favourite, becomes a soldier in Napoleon's armies and Joseph becomes an artist.

On returning to France he is unemployed and lives with his mother and Madame Descoings, becoming a financial drain on them, mainly because of his hard drinking and gambling.

The money Philippe steals had been intended by Madame Descoings to purchase a lottery ticket, on which she regularly spends her savings fervently using the same set of numbers each time.

Meanwhile, in Issoudun, Agathe's elder brother, Jean-Jacques, takes in an ex-soldier named Max Gilet as a boarder.

Max socialises with and leads a group of local young men who call themselves The Knights of Idleness and frequently play practical jokes around the town.

It is now that Joseph and his mother travel to Issoudun to try to persuade Jean-Jacques to give Agathe money to help cover Philippe's legal costs.

Philippe's attempted marriage to a rich man's daughter falls through when his friends disclose his past to her father.

Prior to this, Agathe, who now runs a successful lottery office thanks to Joseph, still views Philippe as a good son despite his neglect of the family.

Agathe writes to Philippe to ask him to visit her and help Joseph financially but he bluntly refuses and wishes to cut all ties with the family in case they jeopardise his noble standing.

Philippe's fortunes take a turn for the worse after some unsuccessful speculation and he rejoins the army to take part in the war in Algeria, where he is killed in action, so that in the end Joseph, now a successful artist, inherits the family fortune and Philippe's title as Comte de Brambourg, much to his amusement.

The nickname is a reference to the job that she did as a young girl when helping her uncle to catch crayfish by stirring up ('rabouiller') the streamlets.