The Brotherhood of Consolation.......................................................................................................................1

Honore de Balzac .....................................................................................................................................1

FIRST EPISODE. MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE ............................................................................1

I. THE MALADY OF THE AGE ...........................................................................................................1

II. OLD HOUSE, OLD PEOPLE, OLD CUSTOMS .............................................................................5

III. THE HOUSE OF MONGENOD ......................................................................................................9

IV. FAREWELL TO THE LIFE OF THE WORLD ............................................................................13

V. THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS ......................................................................................................18

VI. THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF CHANTERIE AND COMPANY ...................................21

VII. MONSIEUR ALAIN TELLS HIS SECRETS ..............................................................................26

VIII. WHO SHE WASWIFE AND MOTHER ................................................................................37

IX. THE LEGAL STATEMENT ..........................................................................................................45

X. PRAY FOR THOSE WHO DESPITEFULLY USE YOU AND PERSECUTE YOU ...................53

SECOND EPISODE. THE INITIATE .................................................................................................60

XI. THE POLICE OF THE GOOD GOD ............................................................................................60

XII. A CASE TO INVESTIGATE .......................................................................................................65

XIII. FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS .................................................................................................73

XIV. HOW THE POOR AND HELPLESS ARE PREYED UPON ....................................................78

XV. AN EVENING WITH VANDA ...................................................................................................86

XVI. A LESSON IN CHARITY ..........................................................................................................95

XVII. HALPERSOHN ........................................................................................................................100

XVIII. WHO MONSIEUR BERNARD WAS ...................................................................................105

XIX. VENGEANCE ...........................................................................................................................111

On a fine evening in the month of September, 1836, a man about thirty years of age was leaning on the

parapet of that quay from which a spectator can look up the Seine from the Jardin des Plantes to Notre

Dame, and down, along the vast perspective of the river, to the Louvre. There is not another point of view to

compare with it in the capital of ideas. We feel ourselves on the quarterdeck, as it were, of a gigantic vessel.

We dream of Paris from the days of the Romans to those of the Franks, from the Normans to the

Burgundians, the Middle Ages, the Valois, Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon, and LouisPhilippe. Vestiges

are before us of all those sovereignties, in monuments that recall their memory. The cupola of

SainteGenevieve towers above the Latin quarter. Behind us rises the noble apsis of the cathedral. The Hotel

de Ville tells of revolutions; the HotelDieu, of the miseries of Paris. After gazing at the splendors of the

Louvre we can, by taking two steps, look down upon the rags and tatters of that ignoble nest of houses

huddling between the quai de la Tournelle and the HotelDieu,a foul spot, which a modern municipality is

In 1836 this marvellous scene presented still another lesson to the eye: between the Parisian leaning on the

parapet and the cathedral lay the "Terrain" (such was the ancient name of this barren spot), still strewn with

the ruins of the Archiepiscopal Palace. When we contemplate from that quay so many commemorating

scenes, when the soul has grasped the past as it does the present of this city of Paris, then indeed Religion

seems to have alighted there as if to spread her hands above the sorrows of both banks and extend her arms

from the faubourg SaintAntoine to the faubourg SaintMarceau. Let us hope that this sublime unity may be

completed by the erection of an episcopal palace of the Gothic order; which shall replace the formless

buildings now standing between the "Terrain," the rue d'Arcole, the cathedral, and the quai de la Cite.

This spot, the heart of ancient Paris, is the loneliest and most melancholy of regions. The waters of the Seine

break there noisily, the cathedral casts its shadows at the setting of the sun. We can easily believe that serious

thoughts must have filled the mind of a man afflicted with a moral malady as he leaned upon that parapet.

Attracted perhaps by the harmony between his thoughts and those to which these diverse scenes gave birth,

he rested his hands upon the coping and gave way to a double contemplation,of Paris, and of himself! The

shadows deepened, the lights shone out afar, but still he did not move, carried along as he was on the current

of a meditation, such as comes to many of us, big with the future and rendered solemn by the past.

After a while he heard two persons coming towards him, whose voices had caught his attention on the bridge

which joins the Ile de la Cite with the quai de la Tournelle. These persons no doubt thought themselves alone,

and therefore spoke louder than they would have done in more frequented places. The voices betrayed a

discussion which apparently, from the few words that reached the ear of the involuntary listener, related to a

loan of money. Just as the pair approached the quay, one of them, dressed like a working man, left the other

"You have not a sou to pay your way across the bridge. Take this," he added, giving the man a piece of

money; "and remember, my friend, that God Himself is speaking to us when a good thought comes into our

This last remark made the dreamer at the parapet quiver. The man who made it little knew that, to use a

proverbial expression, he was killing two birds with one stone, addressing two miseries,a working life

brought to despair, a suffering soul without a compass, the victim of what Panurge's sheep call progress, and

what, in France, is called equality. The words, simple in themselves, became sublime from the tone of him

who said them, in a voice that possesses a spell. Are there not, in fact, some calm and tender voices that

By his dress the dreamer knew him to be a priest, and he saw by the last gleams of the fading twilight a white,

august, worn face. The sight of a priest issuing from the beautiful cathedral of Saint Etienne in Vienna,

bearing the Extreme Unction to a dying person, determined the celebrated tragic author Werner to become a

Catholic. Almost the same effect was produced upon the dreamer when he looked upon the man who had, all

unknowing, given him comfort; on the threatening horizon of his future he saw a luminous space where

shone the blue of ether, and he followed that light as the shepherds of the Gospel followed the voices that

The man who had said the beneficent words passed on by the wall of the cathedral, taking, as a result of

chance, which often leads to great results, the direction of the street from which the dreamer came, and to

This dreamer was named Godefroid. Whoever reads this history will understand the reasons which lead the

writer to use the Christian names only of some who are mentioned in it. The motives which led Godefroid,

who lived in the quarter of the Chausseed'Antin, to the neighborhood of NotreDame at such an hour were

The son of a retail shopkeeper, whose economy enabled him to lay by a sort of fortune, he was the sole object

of ambition to his father and mother, who dreamed of seeing him a notary in Paris. For this reason, at the age

of seven, he was sent to an institution, that of the Abbe Liautard, to be thrown among children of

distinguished families who, during the Empire, chose this school for the education of their sons in preference

to the lyceums, where religion was too much overlooked. Social inequalities were not noticeable among

schoolmates; but in 1821, his studies being ended, Godefroid, who was then with a notary, became aware of

the distance that separated him from those with whom he had hitherto lived on familiar terms.

Obliged to go through the law school, he there found himself among a crowd of the sons of the bourgeoisie,

who, without fortunes to inherit or hereditary distinctions, could look only to their own personal merits or to

persistent toil. The hopes that his father and mother, then retired from business, placed upon him stimulated

the youth's vanity without exciting his pride. His parents lived simply, like the thrifty Dutch, spending only

one fourth of an income of twelve thousand francs. They intended their savings, together with half their

capital, for the purchase of a notary's practice for their son. Subjected to the rule of this domestic economy,

Godefroid found his immediate state so disproportioned to the visions of himself and his parents, that he grew

discouraged. In some feeble natures discouragement turns to envy; others, in whom necessity, will, reflection,

stand in place of talent, march straight and resolutely in the path traced out for bourgeois ambitions.

Godefroid, on the contrary, revolted, wished to shine, tried several brilliant ways, and blinded his eyes. He

endeavored to succeed; but all his efforts ended in proving the fact of his own impotence. Admitting at last

the inequality that existed between his desires and his capacities, he began to hate all social supremacies,

became a Liberal, and attempted to reach celebrity by writing a book; but he learned, to his cost, to regard

talent as he did nobility. Having tried the law, the notariat, and literature, without distinguishing himself in

About this time his father died. His mother, who contented herself in her old age with two thousand francs a

year, gave the rest of the fortune to Godefroid. Thus possessed, at the age of twentyfive, of ten thousand

francs a year, he felt himself rich; and he was so, relatively to the past. Until then his life had been spent on

acts without will, on wishes that were impotent; now, to advance with the age, to act, to play a part, he

resolved to enter some career or find some connection that should further his fortunes. He first thought of

journalism, which always opens its arms to any capital that may come in its way. To be the owner of a

newspaper is to become a personage at once; such a man works intellect, and has all the gratifications of it

and none of the labor. Nothing is more tempting to inferior minds than to be able to rise in this way on the

talents of others. Paris has seen two or three parvenus of this kind,men whose success is a disgrace, both to

In this sphere Godefroid was soon outdone by the brutal Machiavellianism of some, or by the lavish

prodigality of others; by the fortunes of ambitious capitalists, or by the wit and shrewdness of editors.

Meantime he was drawn into all the dissipations that arise from literary or political life, and he yielded to the

temptations incurred by journalists behind the scenes. He soon found himself in bad company; but this

experience taught him that his appearance was insignificant, that he had one shoulder higher than the other,

without the inequality being redeemed by either malignancy or kindness of nature. Such were the truths these

Small, illmade, without superiority of mind or settled purpose, what chance was there for a man like that in

an age when success in any career demands that the highest qualities of the mind be furthered by luck, or by

The revolution of 1830 stanched Godefroid's wounds. He had the courage of hope, which is equal to that of

despair. He obtained an appointment, like other obscure journalists, to a government situation in the

provinces, where his liberal ideas, conflicting with the necessities of the new power, made him a troublesome

instrument. Bitten with liberalism, he did not know, as cleverer men did, how to steer a course. Obedience to

ministers he regarded as sacrificing his opinions. Besides, the government seemed to him to be disobeying

the laws of its own origin. Godefroid declared for progress, where the object of the government was to

maintain the statu quo. He returned to Paris almost poor, but faithful still to the doctrines of the Opposition.

Alarmed by the excesses of the press, more alarmed still by the attempted outrages of the republican party, he

sought in retirement from the world the only life suitable for a being whose faculties were incomplete, and

without sufficient force to bear up against the rough jostling of political life, the struggles and sufferings of

which confer no credit,a being, too, who was wearied with his many miscarriages; without friends, for

friendship demands either striking merits or striking defects, and yet possessing a sensibility of soul more

dreamy than profound. Surely a retired life was the course left for a young man whom pleasure had more than

once misled,whose heart was already aged by contact with a world as restless as it was disappointing.

His mother, who was dying in the peaceful village of Auteuil, recalled her son to live with her, partly to have

him near her, and partly to put him in the way of finding an equable, tranquil happiness which might satisfy a

soul like his. She had ended by judging Godefroid, finding him at twentyeight with twothirds of his

fortune gone, his desires dulled, his pretended capacities extinct, his activity dead, his ambition humbled, and

his hatred against all that reached legitimate success increased by his own shortcomings.

She tried to marry him to an excellent young girl, the only daughter of a retired merchant,a woman well

fitted to play the part of guardian to the sickened soul of her son. But the father had the business spirit which

never abandons an old merchant, especially in matrimonial negotiations, and after a year of attentions and

neighborly intercourse, Godefroid was not accepted. In the first place, his former career seemed to these

worthy people profoundly immoral; then, during this very year, he had made still further inroads into his

capital, as much to dazzle the parents as to please the daughter. This vanity, excusable as it was, caused his

final rejection by the family, who held dissipation of property in holy horror, and who now discovered that in

six years Godefroid had spent or lost a hundred and fifty thousand francs of his capital.

This blow struck the young man's already wounded heart the more deeply because the girl herself had no

personal beauty. But, guided by his mother in judging her character, he had ended by recognizing in the

woman he sought the great value of an earnest soul, and the vast advantages of a sound mind. He had grown

accustomed to the face; he had studied the countenance; he loved the voice, the manners, the glance of that

young girl. Having cast on this attachment the last stake of his life, the disappointment he endured was the

bitterest of all. His mother died, and he found himself, he who had always desired luxury, with five thousand

francs a year for his whole fortune, and with the certainty that never in his future life could he repair any loss

whatsoever; for he felt himself incapable of the effort expressed in that terrible injunction, to make his way.

Weak, impatient grief cannot easily be shaken off. During his mourning, Godefroid tried the various chances

and distractions of Paris; he dined at tabled'hotes; he made acquaintances heedlessly; he sought society, with

no result but that of increasing his expenditures. Walking along the boulevards, he often suffered deeply at

the sight of a mother walking with a marriageable daughter,a sight which caused him as painful an

emotion as he formerly felt when a young man passed him riding to the Bois, or driving in an elegant

equipage. The sense of his impotence told him that he could never hope for the best of even secondary

positions, nor for any easily won career; and he had heart enough to feel constantly wounded, mind enough to

Unfitted to struggle against circumstances, having an inward consciousness of superior faculties without the

will that could put them in action, feeling himself incomplete, without force to undertake any great thing,

without resistance against the tastes derived from his earlier life, his education, and his indolence, he was the

victim of three maladies, any one of which would be enough to sicken of life a young man long alienated

Thus it was that Godefroid presented, even to the eye, the face that we meet so often in Paris that it might be

called the type of the Parisian; in it we may see ambitions deceived or dead, inward wretchedness, hatred

sleeping in the indolence of a life passed in watching the daily and external life of Paris, apathy which seeks

stimulation, lament without talent, a mimicry of strength, the venom of past disappointments which excites to

cynicism, and spits upon all that enlarges and grows, misconceives all necessary authority, rejoicing in its

embarrassments, and will not hold to any social form. This Parisian malady is to the active and permanent

impulse towards conspiracy in persons of energy what the sapwood is to the sap of the trees; it preserves it,

Weary of himself, Godefroid attempted one day to give a meaning to his life, after meeting a former comrade

who had been the tortoise in the fable, while he in earlier days had been the hare. In one of those

conversations which arise when schoolmates meet again in after years, a conversation held as they were

walking together in the sunshine on the boulevard des Italiens,he was startled to learn the success of a man

endowed apparently with less gifts, less means, less fortune than himself; but who had bent his will each

morning to the purpose resolved upon the night before. The sick soul then determined to imitate that simple

"Social existence is like the soil," his comrade had said to him; "it makes us a return in proportion to our

Godefroid was in debt. As a first test, a first task, he resolved to live in some retired place, and pay his debts

from his income. To a man accustomed to spend six thousand francs when he had but five, it was no small

undertaking to bring himself to live on two thousand. Every morning he studied advertisements, hoping to

find the offer of some asylum where his expenses could be fixed, where he might have the solitude a man

wants when he makes a return upon himself, examines himself, and endeavors to give himself a vocation.

The manners and customs of bourgeois boardinghouses shocked his delicacy, sanitariums seemed to him

unhealthy, and he was about to fall back into the fatal irresolution of persons without will, when the

"To Let. A small lodging for seventy francs a month; suitable for an ecclesiastic. A quiet tenant desired.

Board supplied; the rooms can be furnished at a moderate cost if mutually acceptable.

"Inquire of M. Millet, grocer, rue Chanoinesse, near NotreDame, where all further information can be

Attracted by a certain kindliness concealed beneath these words, and the middleclass air which exhaled

from them, Godefroid had, on the afternoon when we found him on the quay, called at four o'clock on the

grocer, who told him that Madame de la Chanterie was then dining, and did not receive any one when at her

meals. The lady, he said, was visible in the evening after seven o'clock, or in the morning between ten and

twelve. While speaking, Monsieur Millet examined Godefroid, and made him submit to what magistrates call

"Was monsieur unmarried? Madame wished a person of regular habits; the gate was closed at eleven at the

This ingenuous answer threw the young man into a state of misanthropic gloom. He went off and dined at a

restaurant on the quai de la Tournelle, and afterwards went to the parapet to contemplate Notre Dame at the

moment when the fires of the setting sun were rippling and breaking about the manifold buttresses of the

The young man was floating between the promptings of despair and the moving voice of religious harmonies

sounding in the bell of the cathedral when, amid the shadows, the silence, the halfveiled light of the moon,

he heard the words of the priest. Though, like most of the sons of our century, he was far from religious, his

sensibilities were touched by those words, and he returned to the rue Chanoinesse, although he had almost

The priest and Godefroid were both surprised when they entered together the rue Massilon, which is opposite

to the small north portal of the cathedral, and turned together into the rue Chanoinesse, at the point where,

towards the rue de la Colombe, it becomes the rue des Marmousets. When Godefroid stopped before the

arched portal of Madame de la Chanterie's house, the priest turned towards him and examined him by the

light of the hanging streetlamp, probably one of the last to disappear from the heart of old Paris.

"Yes," replied Godefroid. "The words I heard you say to that workman show me that, if you live here, this

"Then you were a witness of my defeat," said the priest, raising the knocker of the door, "for I did not

"I thought, on the contrary, it was the workman who did not succeed; he demanded money energetically."

"Alas!" replied the priest, "one of the great evils of revolutions in France is that each offers a fresh premium

to the ambitions of the lower classes. To get out of his condition, to make his fortune (which is regarded

today as the only social standard), the workingman throws himself into some of those monstrous

associations which, if they do not succeed, ought to bring the speculators to account before human justice.

The porter opened a heavy door. The priest said to Godefroid: "Monsieur has perhaps come about the little

The priest and Godefroid then crossed a wide courtyard, at the farther end of which loomed darkly a tall

house flanked by a square tower which rose above the roof, and appeared to be in a dilapidated condition.

Whoever knows the history of Paris, knows that the soil before and around the cathedral has been so raised

that there is not a vestige now of the twelve steps which formerly led up to it. Today the base of the columns

of the porch is on a level with the pavement; consequently what was once the groundfloor of the house of

which we speak is now its cellar. A portico, reached by a few steps, leads to the entrance of the tower, in

which a spiral stairway winds up round a central shaft carved with a grapevine. This style, which recalls the

stairways of Louis XII. at the chateau of Blois, dates from the fourteenth century. Struck by these and other

evidences of antiquity, Godefroid could not help saying, with a smile, to the priest: "This tower is not of

"It sustained, they say, an assault of the Normans, and probably formed part of the first palace of the kings of

Paris; but, according to actual tradition, it was certainly the dwelling of the famous Canon Fulbert, the uncle

As he ended these words, the priest opened the door of the apartment which appeared now to be the

groundfloor of the house, but was in reality towards both the front and back courtyard (for there was a small

In the antechamber a maidservant, wearing a cambric cap with fluted frills for its sole decoration, was

knitting by the light of a little lamp. She stuck her needles into her hair, held her work in her hand, and rose to

open the door of a salon which looked out on the inner court. The dress of the woman was somewhat like that

"Madame, I bring you a tenant," said the priest, ushering Godefroid into the salon, where the latter saw three

These three persons rose; the mistress of the house rose; then, when the priest had drawn up another armchair

for Godefroid, and when the future tenant had seated himself in obedience to a gesture of Madame de la

Chanterie, accompanied by the oldfashioned words, "Be seated, monsieur," the man of the boulevards

fancied himself at some enormous distance from Paris,in lower Brittany or the wilds of Canada.

Silence has perhaps its own degrees. Godefroid, already penetrated with the silence of the rues Massillon and

Chanoinesse, where two carriages do not pass in a month, and grasped by the silence of the courtyard and the

tower, may have felt that he had reached the very heart of silence in this still salon, guarded by so many old

This part of the Ile, which is called "the Cloister," has preserved the character of all cloisters; it is damp, cold,

and monastically silent even at the noisiest hours of the day. It will be remarked, also, that this portion of the

Cite, crowded between the flank of NotreDame and the river, faces the north, and is always in the shadow of

the cathedral. The east winds swirl through it unopposed, and the fogs of the Seine are caught and retained by

the black walls of the old metropolitan church. No one will therefore be surprised at the sensations Godefroid

felt when he found himself in this old dwelling, in presence of four silent human beings, who seemed as

He did not look about him, being seized with curiosity as to Madame de la Chanterie, whose name was

already a puzzle to him. This lady was evidently a person of another epoch, not to say of another world. Her

face was placid, its tones both soft and cold; the nose aquiline; the forehead full of sweetness; the eyes

brown; the chin double; and all were framed in silvery white hair. Her gown could only be called by its

ancient name of "fourreau," so tightly was she sheathed within it, after the fashion of the eighteenth century.

The materiala brown silk, with very fine and multiplied green linesseemed also of that period. The

bodice, which was one with the skirt, was partly hidden beneath a mantle of poultdesoie edged with black

lace, and fastened on the bosom by a brooch enclosing a miniature. Her feet, in black velvet boots, rested on a

cushion. Madame de la Chanterie, like her maid, was knitting a stocking, and she, too, had a needle stuck

"Have you seen Monsieur Millet?" she said to Godefroid, in the head voice peculiar to the dowagers of the

faubourg SaintGermain, observing that her visitor seemed confused, and as if to put the words into his

"I fear that the apartment will scarcely suit you," she said, noticing the elegance and newness of his clothes.

Godefroid was wearing polished leather boots, yellow gloves, handsome studs, and a very pretty gold chain

passed through the buttonhole of his waistcoat of black silk with blue flowers. Madame de la Chanterie took a

"Manon, my child, show this gentleman the apartment. Would you, my dear vicar, be so kind as to

accompany him?" she said, addressing the priest. "If by chance," she added, rising and again looking at

Godefroid bowed and went out. He heard the rattle of keys which Manon took from a drawer, and he saw her

light the candle in a large brass candlestick. Manon went first, without uttering a word. When Godefroid

found himself again on the staircase, winding up two flights, he doubted the reality of life, he dreamed

awake, he saw with his eyes the fantastic world of romances he had read in his idle hours. Any Parisian

leaving, as he did, the modern quarter, with its luxury of houses and furniture, the glitter of its restaurants and

theatres, the tumult and movement of the heart of Paris, would have shared his feeling.

The candle carried by the woman feebly lighted the winding stair, where spiders swung their draperies gray

with dust. Manon wore a petticoat with heavy plaits of a coarse woollen stuff; the bodice was square before

and square behind, and all her clothes seemed to hang together. When she reached the second floor, which, it

will be remembered, was actually the third, Manon stopped, turned a key in an ancient lock, and opened a

Was it a miser, was it an artist dying in penury, was it a cynic to whom the world was naught, or some

religious soul detached from life, who had occupied this apartment? That triple question might well be asked

by one who breathed the odor of that poverty, who saw the greasy spots upon the papers yellow with smoke,

the blackened ceilings, the dusty windows with their casement panes, the discolored floorbricks, the

wainscots layered with a sort of sticky glaze. A damp chill came from the chimneys with their mantels of

painted stone, surmounted by mirrors in panels of the style of the seventeenth century. The apartment was

square, like the house, and looked out upon the inner court, which could not now be seen because of the

"A former councillor of the parliament, a greatuncle of madame, Monsieur de Boisfrelon. After the

Revolution he fell into dotage; but he did not die until 1832, at the age of ninetysix. Madame could not at

first make up her mind to let his rooms to a stranger, but she finds she cannot afford to lose the rent."

"Madame will have the apartment cleaned and furnished in a manner to satisfy monsieur," said Manon.

"That will depend on the arrangement you make with her," said the priest. "You have here a fine parlor, a

large sleepingroom and closet, and those little rooms in the angle will make an excellent study. It is the

"Yes," said Manon, "Monsieur Alain's apartment is just like this, only his has a view of the tower."

The priest and Godefroid went downstairs, leaving the woman to lock the doors. When they reentered the

salon, Godefroid, who was getting inured to the surroundings, looked about him while discoursing with

The salon had curtains at its windows of old red damask, with lambrequins, tied back at the sides with silken

cords. The redtiled floor showed at the edges of an old tapestry carpet too small to cover the whole room.

The woodwork was painted gray. The plastered ceiling, divided in two parts by a heavy beam which started

from the fireplace, seemed a concession tardily made to luxury. Armchairs, with their woodwork painted

white, were covered with tapestry. A paltry clock, between two coppergilt candlesticks, decorated the

mantelshelf. Beside Madame de la Chanterie was an ancient table with spindle legs, on which lay her balls

of worsted in a wicker basket. A hydrostatic lamp lighted the scene. The four men, who were seated there,

silent, immovable, like bronze statues, had evidently stopped their conversation with Madame de la Chanterie

when they heard the stranger returning. They all had cold, discreet faces, in keeping with the room, the house,

Madame de la Chanterie admitted the justice of Godefroid's observations; but told him that she did not wish

to make any change until she knew the intentions of her lodger, or rather her boarder. If he would conform to

the customs of the house he could become her boarder; but these customs were widely different from those of

Paris. Life in the rue Chanoinesse was like provincial life: the lodger must always be in by ten o'clock at

night; they disliked noise; and could have no women or children to break up their customary habits. An

ecclesiastic might conform to these ways. Madame de la Chanterie desired, above all, some one of simple

life, who would not be exacting; she could afford to put only the strictest necessaries into the apartment.

Monsieur Alain (here she designated one of the four men present) was satisfied, and she would do for a new

"I do not think," said the priest, "that monsieur is inclined to enter our convent."

"Eh! why not?" said Monsieur Alain; "we are all well off here; we have nothing to complain of."

"Madame," said Godefroid, rising, "I shall have the honor of calling again tomorrow."

Though he was a young man, the four old men and Madame de la Chanterie rose, and the vicar accompanied

him to the portico. A whistle sounded. At that signal the porter came with a lantern, guided Godefroid to the

street, and closed behind him the enormous yellow door,ponderous as that of a prison, and decorated with

Though Godefroid got into a cabriolet, and was soon rolling into the living, lighted, glowing regions of Paris,

what he had seen still appeared to him a dream, and his impressions, as he made his way along the boulevard

des Italiens, had already the remoteness of a memory. He asked himself, "Shall I tomorrow find those

The next day, as Godefroid rose amid the appointments of modern luxury and the choice appliances of

English "comfort," he remembered the details of his visit to that cloister of NotreDame, and the meaning of

the things he had seen there came into his mind. The three unknown and silent men, whose dress, attitude,

and stillness acted powerfully upon him, were no doubt boarders like the priest. The solemnity of Madame de

la Chanterie now seemed to him a secret dignity with which she bore some great misfortune. But still, in spite

of the explanations which Godefroid gave himself, he could not help fancying there was an air of mystery

He looked around him and selected the pieces of furniture that he would keep, those that were indispensable

to him; but when he transported them in thought to the miserable lodging in the rue Chanoinesse, he began to

laugh at the contrast they would make there, resolving to sell all and let Madame de la Chanterie furnish the

rooms for him. He wanted a new life, and the very sight of these objects would remind him of that which he

wished to forget. In his desire for transformation (for he belonged to those characters who spring at a bound

into the middle of a situation, instead of advancing, as others do, step by step), he was seized while he

breakfasted with an idea, he would turn his whole property into money, pay his debts, and place the

remainder of his capital in the bankinghouse with which his father had done business.

This house was the firm of Mongenod and Company, established in 1816 or 1817, whose reputation for

honesty and uprightness had never been questioned in the midst of the commercial depravity which smirched,

more or less, all the bankinghouses of Paris. In spite of their immense wealth, the houses of Nucingen, du

Tillet, the Keller Brothers, Palma and Company, were each regarded, more or less, with secret disrespect,

although it is true this disrespect was only whispered. Evil means had produced such fine results, such

political successes, dynastic principles covered so completely base workings, that no one in 1834 thought of

the mud in which the roots of these fine trees, the mainstay of the State, were plunged. Nevertheless there

was not a single one of those great bankers to whom the confidence expressed in the house of Mongenod was

not a wound. Like English houses, the Mongenods made no external display of luxury. They lived in

dignified stillness, satisfied to do their business prudently, wisely, and with a stern uprightness which enabled

The actual head of the house, Frederic Mongenod, is the brotherinlaw of the Vicomte de Fontaine;

therefore, this numerous family is allied through the Baron de Fontaine to Monsieur Grossetete, the receiver

general, brother of the Grossetete and Company of Limoges, to the Vandenesses, and to Planat de Baudry,

another receivergeneral. These connections, having procured for the late Mongenod, father of the present

head of the house, many favors in the financial operations under the Restoration, obtained for him also the

confidence of the old noblesse, whose property and whose savings, which were immense, were deposited in

this bank. Far from coveting a peerage, like the Kellers, Nucingen, and du Tillet, the Mongenods kept away

from politics, and only knew as much about them as their banking interests demanded.

The house of Mongenod is established in a fine old mansion in the rue de la Victoire, where Madame

Mongenod, the mother, lived with her two sons, all three being partners in the house,the share of the

Vicomtesse de Fontaine having been bought out by them on the death of the elder Mongenod in 1827.

Frederic Mongenod, a handsome young man about thirtyfive years of age, cold, silent, and reserved in

manner like a Swiss, and neat as an Englishman, had acquired by intercourse with his father all the qualities

necessary for his difficult profession. Better educated than the generality of bankers, his studies had the

breadth and universality which characterize the polytechnic training; and he had, like most bankers,

predilections and tastes outside of his business, he loved mechanics and chemistry. The second brother,

who was ten years younger than Frederic, held the same position in the office of his elder brother that a head

clerk holds in that of a notary or lawyer. Frederic trained him, as he had himself been trained by his father, in

the variety of knowledge necessary to a true banker, who is to money what a writer is to ideas,they must

When Godefroid reached the banking house and gave his name, he saw at once the estimation in which his

father had been held; for he was ushered through the offices without delay to the private countingroom of

the Mongenods. This countingroom was closed with a glass door, so that Godefroid, without any desire to

"Madame, your account is balanced to sixteen hundred thousand francs," said the younger Mongenod. "I do

not know what my brother's intentions are; he alone can say whether an advance of a hundred thousand francs

can be made. You must have been imprudent. Sixteen hundred thousand francs should not be entrusted to any

"Do not speak so loud, Louis!" said a woman's voice. "Your brother has often told you to speak in a low

At this moment Frederic Mongenod himself opened the door of communication between his private house

and the countingroom. He saw Godefroid and crossed the room, bowing respectfully to the lady who was

As soon as Godefroid gave his name, Frederic begged him to be seated; and as the banker opened the lid of

his desk, Louis Mongenod and the lady, who was no other than Madame de la Chanterie, rose and went up to

him. All three then moved into the embrasure of a window and talked in a low voice with Madame

Mongenod, the mother, who was sitting there, and to whom all the affairs of the bank were confided. For over

thirty years this woman had given, to her husband first and then to her sons, such proofs of business sagacity

Godefroid, as he looked about him, noticed on a shelf certain boxes ticketed with the words "De la

Chanterie," and numbered 1 to 7. When the conference was ended by the banker saying to his brother, "Very

good; go down to the cashier," Madame de la Chanterie turned round, saw Godefroid, checked a gesture of

surprise, and asked a few questions of the banker in a low voice, to which he replied in a few words spoken

Madame de la Chanterie now wore gray silk stockings and small prunella shoes; her gown was the same as

before, but she was wrapped in a Venetian "mantua,"a sort of cloak which was just then returning into

fashion. On her head was a drawn bonnet of green silk, lined with white silk, of a style called a la bonne

femme. Her face was framed by a cloud of lace. She held herself very erect, in an attitude which bespoke, if

not noble birth, certainly the habits of an aristocratic life. Without the extreme affability of her manner, she

"It is the will of Providence rather than mere chance that has brought us here together, monsieur," she said to

Godefroid; "for I had almost decided to refuse a lodger whose ways of life seemed to me quite antipathetic to

those of my household; but Monsieur Mongenod has just given me some information about your family

"Ah, madame,monsieur!" said Godefroid, addressing both Madame de la Chanterie and the banker, "I have

no longer a family; and I have come here now to ask some financial advice of my father's business advisers as

Godefroid then succinctly, and in as few words as possible, related his history, and expressed his desire to

"Formerly," he said, "a man in my position would have made himself a monk; but there are no longer any

"Go and live with madame, if she is willing to take you," said Frederic Mongenod, after exchanging a glance

with Madame de la Chanterie, "and do not sell out your property; leave it in my hands. Give me the exact

amount of your debts; I will agree with your creditors for payment at certain dates, and you can have for

yourself about a hundred and fifty francs a month. It will thus take two years to clear you. During those two

years, if you take those quiet lodgings, you will have time to think of a career, especially among the persons

Here Louis Mongenod returned, bringing in his hand a hundred notes of a thousand francs each, which he

gave to Madame de la Chanterie. Godefroid offered his arm to his future hostess, and took her down to the

During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie's arm rested upon his as they walked to the carriage,

Godefroid could not escape the glamour of the words: "Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand

francs!"words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent in the depths of the cloisters of

NotreDame. The thought, "She must be rich!" entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. "How old

is she?" he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue Chanoinesse came to him. "She

certainly has an air of nobility! Can she be concerned in some bank?" thought he.

In our day nine hundred and ninetynine young men out of a thousand in Godefroid's position would have

A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three thousand francs for the articles Godefroid

was willing to sell, and agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to prepare the

shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger with a sick mind. Godefroid went there at once, and

obtained from Madame de la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate sum, agreed to whiten

the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the woodwork, and stain the floors, within a week. Godefroid took the

measure of the rooms, intending to put the same carpet in all of them, a green carpet of the cheapest kind.

He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat, and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea. She

calculated, with Manon's assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for the window curtains,

and also for those of the modest iron bed; and she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so

moderate as to surprise Godefroid. Having brought with him a certain amount of furniture, the whole cost of

"We lead here," said Madame de la Chanterie, "a Christian life, which does not, as you know, accord with

In giving this hint to her future lodger, she looked at a diamond which gleamed in the ring through which

"I only speak of this," she added, "because of the intention you expressed to abandon the frivolous life you

Godefroid looked at Madame de la Chanterie as he listened to the harmonies of her limpid voice; he

examined that face so purely white, resembling those of the cold, grave women of Holland whom the Flemish

painters have so wonderfully reproduced with their smooth skins, in which a wrinkle is impossible.

"White and plump!" he said to himself, as he walked away; "but her hair is white, too."

Godefroid, like all weak natures, took readily to a new life, believing it satisfactory; and he was now quite

eager to take up his abode in the rue Chanoinesse. Nevertheless, a prudent thought, or, if you prefer to say so,

a distrustful thought, occurred to him. Two days before his installation, he went again to see Monsieur

Mongenod to obtain some more definite information about the house he was to enter.

During the few moments he had spent in his future lodgings overlooking the changes that were being made in

them, he had noticed the coming and going of several persons whose appearance and behavior, without being

exactly mysterious, excited a belief that some secret occupation or profession was being carried on in that

house. At that particular period there was much talk of attempts by the elder branch of the Bourbons to

recover the throne, and Godefroid suspected some conspiracy. When he found himself in the banker's

countingroom held by the scrutinizing eye of Frederic Mongenod while he made his inquiry, he felt

"Madame la Baronne de la Chanterie," replied the banker, "is one of the most obscure persons in Paris, but

she is also one of the most honorable. Have you any object in asking for information?"

Godefroid retreated into generalities: he was going to live among strangers; he naturally wished to know

something of those with whom he should be intimately thrown. But the banker's smile became more and

more sarcastic; and Godefroid, more and more embarrassed, was ashamed of the step he had taken, and

which bore no fruit, for he dared not continue his questions about Madame de la Chanterie and her inmates.

Two days later, of a Monday evening, having dined for the last time at the Cafe Anglais, and seen the two

first pieces at the Varietes, he went, at ten o'clock, to sleep for the first time in the rue Chanoinesse, where

Solitude has charms comparable only to those of savage life, which no European has ever really abandoned

after once tasting them. This may seem strange at an epoch when every one lives so much to be seen of others

that all the world concern themselves in their neighbors' affairs, and when private life will soon be a thing of

the past, so bold and so intrusive are the eyes of the press,that modern Argus. Nevertheless, it is a truth

which rests on the authority of the first six Christian centuries, during which no recluse ever returned to social

So, at first, Godefroid was soothed by the deep peace and absolute stillness of his new abode, as a weary

The very day after his arrival at Madame de la Chanterie's he was forced to examine himself, under the sense

that he was separated from all, even from Paris, though he still lived in the shadow of its cathedral. Stripped

of his social vanities, he was about to have no other witnesses of his acts than his own conscience and the

inmates of that house. He had quitted the great highroad of the world to enter an unknown path. Where was

He had been for two hours absorbed in such reflections when Manon, the only servant of the house, knocked

at his door to tell him that the second breakfast was served and the family were waiting for him. Twelve

o'clock was striking. The new lodger went down at once, stirred by a wish to see and judge the five persons

When he entered the room he found all the inmates of the house standing; they were dressed precisely as they

"So well that I did not wake up till ten o'clock," replied Godefroid, bowing to the four men, who returned the

"Manon spoke of a second breakfast," said Godefroid; "but I fear that I have already broken some rule. At

"Not quite so early as the old monks," said Madame de la Chanterie, courteously, "but as early as the

workingmen,six in winter, half past three in summer. Our bedtime is ruled by that of the sun. We are

always asleep by nine in winter and eleven in summer. On rising, we all take a little milk, which comes from

our farm, after saying our prayers, except the Abbe de Veze, who says the first mass, at six o'clock in summer

and seven o'clock in winter, at NotreDame, where these gentlemen are present daily, as well as your humble

Madame de la Chanterie ended her explanation as the five lodgers took their seats at table.

The diningroom, painted throughout in gray, the design of the woodwork being in the style of Louis XIV.,

adjoined the sort of antechamber in which Manon was usually stationed, and it seemed to be parallel with

Madame de la Chanterie's bedroom, which also opened into the salon. This room had no other ornament than

a tall clock. The furniture consisted of six chairs with oval backs covered with worstedwork, done probably

by Madame de la Chanterie's own hand, two buffets and a table, all of Mahogany, on which Manon did not

lay a cloth for breakfast. The breakfast, of monastic frugality, was composed of a small turbot with a white

sauce, potatoes, a salad, and four dishes of fruit,peaches, grapes, strawberries, and fresh almonds; also, for

relishes, honey in the comb (as in Switzerland), radishes, cucumbers, sardines, and butter,the whole served

in the wellknown china with tiny blue flowers and green leaves on a white ground, which was no doubt a

luxury in the days of Louis XIV., but had now, under the growing demands of luxury, come to be regarded as

"We keep the fasts," said Monsieur Alain. "As we go to mass every morning, you will not be surprised to find

"And you shall begin by imitating us," said Madame de la Chanterie, with a glance at Godefroid, whom she

Of the five persons present Godefroid knew the names of three,Madame de la Chanterie, the Abbe de

Veze, and Monsieur Alain. He wished to know those of the other two; but they kept silence and ate their food

"Yes, monsieur," she replied. "We have a little model farm, like the government itself; we call it our country

house; it is twelve miles from here, on the road to Italy, near VilleneuveSaintGeorges."

"It is a property that belongs to us all, and is to go to the survivor," said the goodman Alain.

"Oh, it is not very considerable!" added Madame de la Chanterie, rather hastily, as if she feared that

"There are thirty acres of tilled land," said one of the two personages still unknown to Godefroid, "six of

meadow, and an enclosure containing four acres, in which our house, which adjoins the farmhouse, stands."

"But such a property as that," said Godefroid, "must be worth a hundred thousand francs."

"Oh, we don't get anything out of it but our provisions!" said the same personage.

He was a tall, grave, spare man, with all the appearance of having served in the army. His white hair showed

him to be past sixty, and his face betrayed some violent grief controlled by religion.

The second unnamed person, who seemed to be something between a master of rhetoric and a business agent,

was of ordinary height, plump, but active withal. His face had the jovial expression which characterizes those

The dress of these four personages revealed a neatness due to the most scrupulous personal care. The same

hand, and it was that of Manon, could be seen in every detail. Their coats were perhaps ten years old, but they

were preserved, like the coats of vicars, by the occult power of the servantwoman, and the constant care

with which they were worn. These men seemed to wear on their backs the livery of a system of life; they

belonged to one thought, their looks said the same word, their faces breathed a gentle resignation, a

"Is it an indiscretion, madame," said Godefroid, "to ask the names of these gentlemen? I am ready to explain

"That gentleman," said Madame de la Chanterie, motioning to the tall, thin man, "is Monsieur Nicolas; he is a

colonel of gendarmerie, retired with the rank of brigadiergeneral. And this," she added, looking towards the

stout little man, "is a former councillor of the royal courts of Paris, who retired from the magistracy in 1830.

His name is Monsieur Joseph. Though you have only been with us one day, I will tell you that in the world

Monsieur Nicolas once bore the name of the Marquis de Montauran, and Monsieur Joseph that of Lecamus,

Baron de Tresnes; but for us, as for the world, those names no longer exist. These gentlemen are without

heirs; they only advance by a little the oblivion which awaits their names; they are simply Monsieur Nicolas

As he heard those names,one so celebrated in the annals of royalism by the catastrophe which put an end

to the uprising of the Chouans; the other so revered in the halls of the old parliament of Paris, Godefroid

could not repress a quiver. He looked at these relics of the grandest things of the fallen monarchy,the

noblesse and the law, and he could see no movement of the features, no change in the countenance, that

revealed the presence of a worldly thought. Those men no longer remembered, or did not choose to

"Each of your names, gentlemen, is a whole history in itself," he said respectfully.

The latter can be described in a word: he was the small bourgeois of Paris, the worthy middleclass being

with a kindly face, relieved by pure white hair, but made insipid by an eternal smile.

As for the priest, the Abbe de Veze, his presence said all. The priest who fulfils his mission is known by the

first glance he gives you, and by the glance that others who know him give to him.

That which struck Godefroid most forcibly at first was the profound respect which the four lodgers

manifested for Madame de la Chanterie. They all seemed, even the priest, in spite of the sacred character his

functions gave him, to regard her as a queen. Godefroid also noticed their sobriety. Each seemed to eat only

for nourishment. Madame de la Chanterie took, as did the rest, a single peach and half a bunch of grapes; but

she told her new lodger, as she offered him the various dishes, not to imitate such temperance.

Godefroid's curiosity was excited to the highest degree by this first entrance on his new life. When they

returned to the salon after breakfast, he was left alone; Madame de la Chanterie retired to the embrasure of a

window and held a little private council with her four friends. This conference, entirely devoid of animation,

lasted half an hour. They spoke together in a low voice, exchanging words which each of them appeared to

have thought over. From time to time Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph consulted a notebook, turning

"See the faubourg," said Madame de la Chanterie to Monsieur Joseph, who left the house.

"And you the SaintMarceau quarter," she continued, addressing Monsieur Nicolas. "Hunt through the

faubourg SaintGermain and see if you can find what we want;" this to the Abbe de Veze, who went away

immediately. "And you, my dear Alain," she added, smiling at the latter, "make an examination. There, those

She seated herself in her armchair, took a little piece of linen from the table before her, and began to sew as if

Godefroid, lost in conjecture, and still thinking of a royalist conspiracy, took his landlady's remark as an

opening, and he began to study her as he seated himself beside her. He was struck by the singular dexterity

with which she worked. Although everything about her bespoke the great lady, she showed the dexterity of a

workwoman; for every one can see at a glance, by certain manipulations, the work of a workman or an

"Alas!" she answered, without raising her head, "I did know it once out of necessity."

Two large tears came into her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks to the linen in her hand.

Madame de Chanterie looked at her new lodger, and saw such an expression of genuine regret upon his face,

that she made him a friendly sign. After drying her eyes, she immediately recovered the calmness that

"You are here, Monsieur Godefroid,for you know already that we shall call you by your baptized

name,you are here in the midst of ruins caused by a great tempest. We have each been struck and wounded

in our hearts, our family interests, or our fortunes, by that whirlwind of forty years, which overthrew religion

and royalty, and dispersed the elements of all that made old France. Words that seem quite harmless do

sometimes wound us all, and that is why we are so silent. We speak rarely of ourselves; we forget ourselves,

and we have found a way to substitute another life for our lives. It is because, after hearing your confidence at

Monsieur Mongenod's, I thought there seemed a likeness between your situation and ours, that I induced my

four friends to receive you among us; besides, we wanted another monk in our convent. But what are you

"Madame, I should be very glad, after hearing what you have said, if you yourself would be the guide of my

"You speak like a man of the world," she answered, "and are trying to flatter me,a woman of sixty! My

dear child," she went on, "let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who

have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they were Trappists. Have you

ever remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he

listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no

longer vanity or selflove,nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His

quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a

one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a

good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one's self

to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to

"Instruct me, madame," said Godefroid, deeply impressed, "so that I may not fail in any of your rules."

"That would be hard upon you; you will learn them by degrees. Never speak here of your misfortunes; they

are slight compared to the catastrophes by which the lives of those you are now among were blasted."

While speaking thus, Madame de la Chanterie drew her needle and let her stitches with unbroken regularity;

but here she paused, raised her head, and looked at Godefroid. She saw him charmed by the penetrating

sweetness of her voice, which possessed, let us say it here, an apostolic unction. The sick soul contemplated

with admiration the truly extraordinary phenomenon presented by this woman, whose face was now

resplendent. Rosy tints were spreading on the waxen cheeks, her eyes shone, the youthfulness of her soul

changed the light wrinkles into gracious lines, and all about her solicited affection. Godefroid in that one

moment measured the gulf that separated this woman from common sentiments. He saw her inaccessible on a

peak to which religion had led her; and he was still too worldly not to be keenly piqued, and to long to plunge

through the gulf and up to the summit on which she stood, and stand beside her. Giving himself up to this

desire, he related to her all the mistakes of his life, and much that he could not tell at Mongenod's, where his

That exclamation, falling now and then from Madame de la Chanterie's lips as he went on, dropped like balm

"What can I substitute for so many hopes betrayed, so much affection wasted?" he asked, looking at his

hostess, who had now grown thoughtful. "I came here," he resumed, "to reflect and choose a course of action.

Godefroid put out his hand to take that of his hostess, who gave it to him, guessing his intentions. He carried

it respectfully to his lips. Madame de la Chanterie's hand was exquisitely beautiful,without a wrinkle;

neither fat nor thin; white enough to be the envy of all young women, and shapely enough for the model of a

sculptor. Godefroid had already admired those hands, conscious of their harmony with the spell of her voice,

"Wait a moment," said Madame de la Chanterie, rising and going into her own room.

Godefroid was keenly excited; he did not know to what class of ideas her movement was to be attributed. His

perplexity did not last long, for she presently returned with a book in her hand.

"Here, my dear child," she said, "are the prescriptions of a great physician of souls. When the things of

ordinary life have not given us the happiness we expected of them, we must seek for happiness in a higher

life. Here is the key of a new world. Read night and morning a chapter of this book; but bring your full

attention to bear upon what you read; study the words as you would a foreign language. At the end of a

month you will be another man. It is now twenty years that I have read a chapter every day; and my three

friends, Messieurs Nicolas, Alain, and Joseph, would no more fail in that practice than they would fail in

getting up and going to bed. Do as they do for love of God, for love of me," she said, with a divine serenity,

Godefroid turned over the book and read upon its back in gilt letters, IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST. The

simplicity of this old woman, her youthful candor, her certainty of doing a good deed, confounded the

exdandy. Madame de la Chanterie's face wore a rapturous expression, and her attitude was that of a woman

who was offering a hundred thousand francs to a merchant on the verge of bankruptcy.

"I have used that volume," she said, "for twentysix years. God grant its touch may be contagious. Go now

and buy me another copy; for this is the hour when persons come here who must not be seen."

Godefroid bowed and went to his room, where he flung the book upon the table, exclaiming,

The book, like all books frequently read, opened in a particular place. Godefroid sat down as if to put his

ideas in order, for he had gone through more emotion during this one morning than he had often done in the

agitated months of his life; but above all, his curiosity was keenly excited. Letting his eyes fall by chance, as

people will when their souls are launched in meditation, they rested mechanically on the two open pages of

He took up the book; a sentence of that noble chapter caught his eye like a flash of light:

"Go where thou wilt, seek what thou wilt, never canst thou find a nobler, surer path than the royal way of the

"Dispose and order all things according to thy desires and thine own judgment and still thou shalt find trials

to suffer, whether thou wilt or no; and so the cross is there; be it pain of body or pain of mind.

"Sometimes God will seem to leave thee, sometimes men will harass thee. But, far worse, thou wilt find

thyself a burden to thyself, and no remedy will deliver thee, no consolation comfort thee: until it pleases God

to end thy trouble thou must bear it; for it is God's will that we suffer without consolation, that we may go to

"What a strange book!" thought Godefroid, turning over the leaves. Then his eyes lighted on the following

Annoyed by this simplicity (the characteristic of strength), angry at being foiled by a book, he closed the

volume; but even then he saw, in letters of gold on the green morocco cover, the words:

He went out to buy the handsomest copy he could find of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" thinking that

Madame de la Chanterie would wish to read her chapter that night. When he reached the street he stood a

moment near the door, uncertain which way to take and debating in what direction he was likely to find a

bookseller. As he stood there he heard the heavy sound of the massive portecochere closing.

Two men were leaving the hotel de la Chanterie. If the reader has fully understood the character of this old

house he will know that it was one of the ancient mansions of the olden time. Manon, herself, when she

called Godefroid that morning, had asked him, smiling, how he had slept in the hotel de la Chanterie.

Godefroid followed the two men without the slightest intention of watching them; they took him for an

accidental passer, and spoke in tones which enabled him to hear distinctly in those lonely streets.

The two men passed along the rue Massillon beside the church and crossed the open space in front of it.

"Well, you see, old man, it is easy enough to catch their sous. Say what they want you to say, that's all."

"Well, I'd rather; I'm sick of it; it isn't being a man at all to be drunk half one's time."

"Yes, but you know the abbe turned his back on old Marin the other day; he refused him everything."

"Because old Marin tried to swindle, and nobody can succeed in that but millionnaires."

Just then the two men, whose dress seemed to show that they were foremen in some workshop, turned

abruptly round towards the place Maubert by the bridge of the HotelDieu. Godefroid stepped aside to let

them pass. Seeing him so close behind them they looked rather anxiously at each other, and their faces

Godefroid was the more interested by this conversation because it reminded him of the scene between the

Thinking over this circumstance, he went as far as a bookseller's in the rue SaintJacques, whence he

returned with a very handsome copy of the finest edition published in France of the "Imitation of Jesus

Christ." Walking slowly back, in order that he might arrive exactly at the dinner hour, he recalled his own

sensations during this morning and he was conscious of a new impulse in his soul. He was seized by a sudden

and deep curiosity, but his curiosity paled before an inexplicable desire. He was drawn to Madame de la

Chanterie; he felt the keenest desire to attach himself to her, to devote himself to her, to please her, to deserve

her praise: in short, he felt the first emotions of platonic love; he saw glimpses of the untold grandeur of that

soul, and he longed to know it in its entirety. He grew impatient to enter the inner lives of these pure

Catholics. In that small company of faithful souls, the majesty of practical religion was so thoroughly blended

with all that is most majestic in a French woman that Godefroid resolved to leave no stone unturned to make

himself accepted as a true member of the little body. These feelings would have been unnaturally sudden in a

busy Parisian eagerly occupied with life, but Godefroid was, as we have seen, in the position of a drowning

man who catches at every floating branch thinking it a solid stay, and his soul, ploughed and furrowed with

He found the four friends in the salon, and he presented the book to Madame de la Chanterie, saying:

"God grant," she said, smiling, as she looked at the magnificent volume, "that this may be your last excess of

Looking at the clothes of the four men present and observing how in every particular they were reduced to

mere utility and neatness, and seeing, too, how rigorously the same principle was applied to all the details of

the house, Godefroid understood the value of the reproach so courteously made to him.

"Madame," he said, "the persons whom you obliged this morning are scoundrels; I overheard, without

intending it, what they said to each other when they left the house; it was full of the basest ingratitude."

"They were the two locksmiths of the rue Mouffetard," said Madame de la Chanterie to Monsieur Nicolas;

"The fish gets away more than once before it is caught," said Monsieur Alain, laughing.

The perfect indifference of Madame de la Chanterie on hearing of the immediate ingratitude of persons to

whom she had, no doubt, given money, surprised Godefroid, who became thoughtful.

The dinner was enlivened by Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph; but Monsieur Nicolas remained quiet,

sad, and cold; he bore on his features the ineffaceable imprint of some bitter grief, some eternal sorrow.

Madame de la Chanterie paid equal attentions to all. Godefroid felt himself observed by these persons, whose

prudence equalled their piety; his vanity led him to imitate their reserve, and he measured his words.

This first day was much more interesting than those which succeeded it. Godefroid, who found himself set

aside from all the serious conferences, was obliged, during several hours in mornings and evenings when he

was left wholly to himself, to have recourse to the "Imitation of Jesus Christ;" and he ended by studying that

book as a man studies a book when he has but one, or is a prisoner. A book is then like a woman with whom

we live in solitude; we must either hate or adore that woman, and, in like manner, we must either enter into

Now, it is impossible not to be impressed by the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," which is to dogma what action is

to thought. Catholicism vibrates in it, pulses, breathes, and lives, body to body, with human life. The book is

a sure friend. It speaks to all passions, all difficulties, even worldly ones; it solves all problems; it is more

eloquent than any preacher, for its voice is your own, it is the voice within your soul, you hear it with your

spirit. It is, in short, the Gospel translated, adapted to all ages, the summit and crest of all human situations. It

is extraordinary that the Church has never canonized John Gersen, for the Divine Spirit evidently inspired his

For Godefroid, the hotel de la Chanterie now held a woman and a book; day by day he loved the woman

more; he discovered flowers buried beneath the snows of winter in her heart; he had glimpses of the joys of a

sacred friendship which religion permits, on which the angels smile; a friendship which here united these five

This is a sentiment higher than all others; a love of soul to soul, resembling those rarest flowers born on the

highest peaks of earth; a love of which a few examples are offered to humanity from age to age, by which

lovers are sometimes bound together in one being, and which explains those faithful attachments which are

otherwise inexplicable by the laws of the world. It is a bond without disappointment, without

misunderstanding, without vanity, without strife, without even contradictions; so completely are the moral

This sentiment, vast, infinite, born of Catholic charity, Godefroid foresaw with all its joys. At times he could

not believe the spectacle before his eyes, and he sought for reasons to explain the sublime friendship of these

five persons, wondering in his heart to find true Catholics, true Christians of the early Church, in the Paris of

Within a week after his arrival Godefroid had seen such a concourse of persons, he had overheard fragments

of conversation relating to so many serious topics, that he began to perceive an enormous activity in the lives

of the five inmates of the house. He noticed that none of them slept more than five hours at the most.

They had all made, in some sort, a first day, before the second breakfast. During that time strangers came and

went, bringing or carrying away money, sometimes in considerable sums. A messenger from the Mongenod

countingroom often came,always very early in the morning, so that his errand might not interfere with the

One evening Monsieur Mongenod came himself, and Godefroid noticed that he showed to Monsieur Alain a

certain filial familiarity added to the profound respect which he testified to the three other lodgers of Madame

On that evening the banker merely put a few matteroffact questions to Godefroid: "Was he comfortable?

Did he intend to stay?" etc.,at the same time advising him to persevere in his plan.

"An occupation!" remarked the Abbe de Veze. "Then you have changed your mind? I thought you came to

"Rest, without the prayers that enlivened monasteries, without the meditation which peopled the Thebaids,

"Learn bookkeeping," said Monsieur Mongenod, with a smile; "you might become in a few months very

The next day was Sunday; Madame de la Chanterie requested him to give her his arm to high mass.

"It is," she said, "the only coercion I shall put upon you. Several times during the past week I have wished to

speak to you of religion, but it did not seem to me that the time had come. You would find plenty of

occupation if you shared our beliefs, for then you would share our labors as well."

During mass Godefroid noticed the fervor of Messieurs Nicolas, Joseph, and Alain; and as during the last few

days he had also noticed their superiority and intelligence, and the vast extent of their knowledge; he

concluded, when he saw how they humbled themselves, that the Catholic religion had secrets which had

"After all," he said to himself, "it is the religion of Bossuet, Pascal, Racine, SaintLouis, Louis XIV.,

Raffaelle, MichelAngelo, Ximenes, Bayard, du Guesclin; and how could I, weakling that I am, compare

If there were not some real instruction in these minor details it would be imprudent to dwell upon them in

these days; but they are indispensable to the interests of this history, in which the present public will be none

too ready to believe, and which presents at the outset a fact that is almost ridiculous,namely, the empire

"You did not pray at all," said Madame de la Chanterie to Godefroid as they left the portal of NotreDame;

"Will you do me the favor," continued Madame de la Chanterie, "to go to your room and not come into the

salon for an hour? You can meditate, if you love me, on the first chapter in the third book of the

"The devil take them!" he exclaimed to himself, giving way to downright anger. "What do they want with me

here? What is all this traffic they are carrying on? Pooh! all women, even pious ones, are up to the same

tricks. If Madame" (giving her the name by which her lodgers spoke of her) "wants me out of the way it is

With that thought in his mind he tried to look from his window into that of the salon; but the situation of the

rooms did not allow it. He went down one flight, and then returned,reflecting that according to the rigid

principles of the house he should be dismissed if discovered spying. To lose the respect of those five persons

He waited three quarters of an hour; then he resolved to surprise Madame de la Chanterie and come upon her

suddenly before she expected him. He invented a lie to excuse himself, saying that his watch was wrong; for

which purpose he set it on twenty minutes. Then he went downstairs, making no noise, reached the door of

He saw a man, still young, but already celebrated, a poet, whom he had frequently met in society, Victor de

Vernisset, on his knees before Madame de la Chanterie and kissing the hem of her dress. If the sky had fallen,

and shivered to atoms like glass, as the ancients thought it was, Godefroid could not have been more

astonished. Shocking thoughts came into his mind, and then a reaction more terrible still when, before the

sarcasm he was about to utter had left his lips, he saw Monsieur Alain in a corner of the room counting out

In an instant Vernisset was on his feet, and the worthy Alain looked thunderstruck. Madame de la Chanterie,

on her part, gave Godefroid a look which petrified him; for the twofold expression on the face of the visitor

"Monsieur is one of us," she said to the young poet, with a sign towards Godefroid.

"Then you are a happy man, my dear fellow," said Vernisset; "you are saved! But, madame," he added,

turning to Madame de la Chanterie, "if all Paris had seen me, I should rejoice in it. Nothing can ever mark my

gratitude to you. I am yours forever; I belong to you utterly. Command me as you will and I obey. I owe you

"Well, well, young man!" said the kind Alain, "then be wise, be virtuous,only, work; but do not attack

And he handed him an envelope thick with the banknotes he had counted out. The tears were in Victor de

Vernisset's eyes; he kissed Madame de la Chanterie's hand respectfully, and went away, after shaking hands

"You have not obeyed madame," said the goodman Alain solemnly, with a sad expression on his face that

Godefroid had never before seen there; "and that is a great wrong; if it happens again we must part. This may

"My dear Alain," said Madame de la Chanterie, "have the kindness for my sake to say no more about this

piece of thoughtlessness. We ought not to ask too much a new arrival, who has been spared great misfortunes

and knows nothing of religion; and who, moreover, has only an excessive curiosity about our vocation, and

"Forgive me, madame," said Godefroid; "I do desire, from this time forth, to be worthy of you. I will submit

to any trial you think necessary before initiating me into the secrets of your work; and if the Abbe de Veze

These words made Madame de la Chanterie so happy that a faint color stole upon her cheeks. She took

Godefroid's hand and pressed it, then she said, with strange emotion, "It is well."

That evening, after dinner, visitors came in: a vicargeneral of the diocese of Paris, two canons, two former

mayors of Paris, and one of the ladies who distributed the charities of NotreDame. No cards were played;

A visit which surprised Godefroid greatly was that of the Comtesse de CinqCygne, one of the highest

personages in aristocratic society, whose salon was inaccessible to the bourgeoisie and to parvenus. The

presence of this great lady in Madame de la Chanterie's salon was sufficiently surprising; but the manner in

which the two women met and treated each other seemed to Godefroid inexplicable; for it showed the closest

intimacy and a constant intercourse which gave Madame de la Chanterie an added value in his eyes. Madame

de CinqCygne was gracious and affectionate in manner to the four friends of her friend, and showed the

We may see here how social vanities still governed Godefroid; for up to this visit of Madame de CinqCygne

he was still undecided; but he now resolved to give himself up, with or without conviction, to whatever

Madame de la Chanterie and her friends might exact of him, in order to get affiliated with their order and

initiated into their secrets, assuring himself that in that way he should find a career.

The next day he went to a bookkeeper whom Madame de la Chanterie recommended, and arranged with

him the hours at which they should work together. His whole time was now employed. The Abbe de Veze

instructed him in the mornings; he was two hours a day with the bookkeeper; and he spent the rest of his

time between breakfast and dinner in doing imaginary commercial accounts which his master required him to

Some time passed thus, during which Godefroid felt the charm of a life in which each hour has its own

employment. The recurrence of a settled work at settled moments, regularity of action, is the secret of many a

happy life; and it proves how deeply the founders of religious orders had meditated on the nature of man.

Godefroid, who had made up his mind to listen to the Abbe de Veze, began to have serious thoughts of a

future life, and to find how little he knew of the real gravity of religious questions.

Moreover, from day to day Madame de la Chanterie, with whom he always remained for an hour after the

second breakfast, allowed him to discover the treasures that were in her; he knew then that he never could

have imagined a lovingkindness so broad and so complete. A woman of Madame de la Chanterie's apparent

age no longer has the pettiness of younger women. She is a friend who offers you all feminine refinements,

who displays the graces, the choice attractions which nature inspires in a woman for man; she gives them,

and no longer sells them. Such a woman is either detestable or perfect; for her gifts are either not of the flesh

or they are worthless. Madame de la Chanterie was perfect. She seemed never to have had a youth; her glance

never told of a past. Godefroid's curiosity was far from being appeased by a closer and more intimate

knowledge of this sublime nature; the discoveries of each succeeding day only redoubled his desire to learn

the anterior life of a woman whom he now thought a saint. Had she ever loved? Had she been a wife,a

mother? Nothing about her was characteristic of an old maid; she displayed all the graces of a wellborn

woman; and an observer would perceive in her robust health, in the extraordinary phenomena of her physical

preservation, a divine life, and a species of ignorance of the earthly existence.

Except the gay and cheery goodman Alain, all these persons had suffered; but Monsieur Nicolas himself

seemed to give the palm of martyrdom to Madame de la Chanterie. Nevertheless, the memory of her sorrows

was so restrained by religious resignation, by her secret avocations, that she seemed to have been always

"You are the life of your friends," Godefroid said to her one day; "you are the tie that unites them,the

housemother, as it were, of some great work; and, as we are all mortal, I ask myself sometimes what your

"That is what frightens the others; but Providence, to whom we owe our new bookkeeper," she said,

"Will your new bookkeeper soon be allowed to work at your business?" asked Godefroid.

"That depends on himself," she answered, smiling. "He must be sincerely religious, truly pious, without the

least selfinterest, not concerned about the riches of our house, able to rise above all petty social

"Singleness of mind and purity," replied Madame de la Chanterie. "Your ignorance shows that you have

neglected the reading of our book." she added, laughing at the innocent trick she had played to know if

Godefroid had read the "Imitation of Jesus Christ." "And, lastly," she went on, "fill your soul with Saint

Paul's epistle upon Charity. When that is done," she added, with a sublime look, "it will not be you who

belong to us, we shall belong to you, and you will be able to count up greater riches than the sovereigns of

this world possess; you will enjoy as we enjoy; yes, let me tell you (if you remember the 'Arabian Nights')

that the treasures of Aladdin are nothing to those we possess. And so for the last year we have not sufficed for

While speaking, she studied Godefroid's face; he, on his part, did not know how to take this extraordinary

confidence. But as the scene in the countingroom at Mongenod's came often to his mind, he hovered

Godefroid was so consumed with curiosity that from this moment he determined to break through the reserve

of one of the four friends and question him. Now, the one to whom he felt the most drawn, and who seemed

naturally to excite the sympathies of all classes, was the kind, gay, simple Monsieur Alain. By what strange

path could Providence have led a being so guileless into this monastery without a lock, where recluses of both

sexes lived beneath a rule in the midst of Paris, in absolute freedom, as though they were guarded by the

sternest of superiors? What drama, what event, had made him leave his own road in life, and take this path

One evening Godefroid determined to pay a visit to his neighbor on the floor above him, with the intention of

satisfying a curiosity more excited by the apparent impossibility of a catastrophe in such an existence than it

would have been under the expectation of discovering some terrible episode in the life of a corsair.

At the words "Come in!" given in answer to two raps struck discreetly on the door, Godefroid turned the key

which was in the lock and found Monsieur Alain sitting by the fire reading, before he went to bed, his

accustomed chapter in the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," by the light of two waxcandles, each protected by a

The goodman wore trousers a pied and his gray camlet dressinggown. His feet were at a level with the fire,

resting on a cushion done in worstedwork, as were his slippers, by Madame de la Chanterie. The fine head

of the old man, without other covering than its crown of white hair, almost like that of a monk, stood out in

Monsieur Alain gently laid his book, which was much worn at the corners, on a little table with twisted legs,

and signed to the young man to take another chair, removing as he did so a pair of spectacles which were

"Dear Monsieur Alain," said Godefroid, frankly, "I am tortured with a curiosity which one word from you

will make very harmless or very indiscreet; and that explains clearly enough the spirit in which I shall ask my

"Oh! oh! and what is your question?" said the good soul, looking at the young man with an eye that was half

"What was it that brought you here to lead the life that you live here? For, surely, to accept the doctrines of

such total renunciation of all personal interests, a man must have been disgusted with the world, or else have

"Eh! my dear lad," replied the old man, letting a smile flicker on his large lips, which gave to his rosy mouth

the kindliest expression that the genius of a painter ever imagined, "can we not be moved to the deepest pity

by the spectacle of human wretchedness which Paris holds within her walls? Did Saint Vincent de Paul need

the spur of remorse or wounded vanity to make him devote himself to outcast children?"

"You close my mouth, for if ever a soul resembled that of the Christian hero, it is yours," said Godefroid.

In spite of the hardness which age had given to the wrinkled yellow skin of his face, the old man blushed, for

he seemed to have provoked that comparison; though any one who knew his modesty would have been

certain he never dreamed of it. Godefroid was aware by this time that Madame de la Chanterie's inmates had

no taste for that sort of incense. Nevertheless, the extreme simplicity of the good old soul was more disturbed

"Though I am very far indeed from Saint Vincent de Paul morally," said Monsieur Alain, "I think I do

Godefroid was about to speak, but was stopped by a gesture of the old man, whose nose, it must be owned,

had the tuberous appearance of that of the Saint, and whose face, a good deal like that of an old vine dresser,

was an exact duplicate of the broad, common face of the founder of Foundling hospitals.

"As for me, you are right enough," he went on; "my vocation for our work was brought about by repentance,

"A folly,you!" Godefroid exclaimed softly, the word entirely putting out of his head what he meant to say.

"Ah! dear me, what I am going to tell you will seem, I dare say, a trifle to you,a mere bit of nonsense; but

before the tribunal of conscience it was another thing. If you persist in wishing to share our work after

hearing what I shall tell you, you will understand that the power of a sentiment is according to the nature of

souls, and that a matter which would not in the least trouble a strong mind may very well torment the

After a preface of this kind, the curiosity of the disciple of course knew no bounds. What could be the crime

of the worthy soul whom Madame de la Chanterie called her paschal lamb? The thought crossed Godefroid's

mind that a book might be written on it, called "The Sins of a Sheep." Sheep are sometimes quite ferocious

towards grass and flowers. One of the tenderest republicans of those days was heard to assert that the best of

human beings was cruel to something. But the kindly Alain!he, who like my uncle Toby, wouldn't crush a

gnat till it had stung him twenty times,that sweet soul to have been tortured by repentance!

This reflection in Godefroid's mind filled the pause made by the old man after saying, "Now listen to

me!"a pause he filled himself by pushing his cushion under Godefroid's feet to share it with him.

"I was then about thirty years of age," he said. "It was the year '98, if I remember right,a period when

young men were forced to have the experience of men of sixty. One morning, a little before my breakfast

hour, which was nine o'clock, my old housekeeper ushered in one of the few friends remaining to me after the

Revolution. My first word was to ask him to breakfast. My friendhis name was Mongenod, a fellow about

twentyeight years of ageaccepted, but he did so in an awkward manner. I had not seen him since 1793!"

"If you want to know the end before the beginning, how am I to tell you my history?" said the old man,

"When Mongenod sat down," continued Monsieur Alain, "I noticed that his shoes were worn out. His

stockings had been washed so often that it was difficult to say if they were silk or not. His breeches, of

apricotcolored cassimere, were so old that the color had disappeared in spots; and the buckles, instead of

being of steel, seemed to me to be made of common iron. His white, flowered waistcoat, now yellow from

long wearing, also his shirt, the frill of which was frayed, betrayed a horrible yet decent poverty. A mere

glance at his coat was enough to convince me that my friend had fallen into dire distress. That coat was

nutbrown in color, threadbare at the seams, carefully brushed, though the collar was greasy from pomade or

powder, and had the white metal buttons now coppercolored. The whole was so shabby that I tried not to

look at it. The hatan opera hat of a kind we then carried under the arm, and not on the headhad seen

many governments. Nevertheless, my poor friend must have spent a few sous at the barber's, for he was

neatly shaved; and his hair, gathered behind his head with a comb and powdered carefully, smelt of pomade. I

saw two chains hanging down on his breeches,two rusty steel chains,but no appearance of a watch in his

pocket. I tell you all these details, as they come to me," said Monsieur Alain; "I seldom think of this matter

"It was winter, and Mongenod evidently had no cloak; for I noticed that several lumps of snow, which must

have dropped from the roofs as he walked along, were sticking to the collar of his coat. When he took off his

rabbitskin gloves, and I saw his right hand, I noticed the signs of labor, and toilsome labor, too. Now his

father, the advocate of the Grand Council, had left him some property,about five or six thousand francs a

year. I saw at once that he had come to me to borrow money. I had, in a secret hidingplace, two hundred

louis d'or,an enormous hoard at that time; for they were worth I couldn't now tell you how many hundred

thousand francs in assignats. Mongenod and I had studied at the same collage,that of Grassins,and we

had met again in the same lawoffice,that of Bordin,a truly honest man. When you have spent your

boyhood and played your youthful pranks with the same comrade, the sympathy between you and him has

something sacred about it; his voice, his glance, stir certain chords in your heart which only vibrate under the

memories that he brings back. Even if you have had cause of complaint against such a comrade, the rights of

the friendship between you can never be effaced. But there had never been the slightest jar between us two.

At the death of his father, in 1787, Mongenod was left richer than I. Though I had never borrowed money

from him, I owed him pleasures which my father's economy denied me. Without my generous comrade I

should never had seen the first representation of the 'Marriage of Figaro.' Mongenod was what was called in

those days a charming cavalier; he was very gallant. Sometimes I blamed him for his facile way of making

intimacies and his too great amiability. His purse opened freely; he lived in a free handed way; he would

serve a man as second having only seen him twice. Good God! how you send me back to the days and the

"Oh, no! and you can judge by the minuteness with which I am telling you all this how great a place this

"Mongenod, endowed with an excellent heart and fine courage, a trifle Voltairean, was inclined to play the

nobleman," went on Monsieur Alain. "His education at Grassins, where there were many young nobles, and

his various gallantries, had given him the polished manners and ways of people of condition, who were then

called aristocrats. You can therefore imagine how great was my surprise to see such symptoms of poverty in

the young and elegant Mongenod of 1787 when my eyes left his face and rested on his garments. But as, at

that unhappy period of our history, some persons assumed a shabby exterior for safety, and as he might have

had some other and sufficient reasons for disguising himself, I awaited an explanation, although I opened the

way to it. 'What a plight you are in, my dear Mongenod!' I said, accepting the pinch of snuff he offered me

from a copper and zinc snuffbox. 'Sad indeed!' he answered; 'I have but one friend left, and that is you. I

have done all I could to avoid appealing to you; but I must ask you for a hundred louis. The sum is large, I

know,' he went on, seeing my surprise; 'but if you gave me fifty I should be unable ever to return them;

whereas with one hundred I can seek my fortune in better ways, despair will inspire me to find them.'

'Then you have nothing?' I exclaimed. 'I have,' he said, brushing away a tear, 'five sous left of my last piece of

money. To come here to you I have had my boots blacked and my face shaved. I possess what I have on my

back. But,' he added, with a gesture, 'I owe my landlady a thousand francs in assignats, and the man I buy

cold victuals from refused me credit yesterday. I am absolutely without resources.' 'What do you think of

doing?' 'Enlisting as a soldier if you cannot help me.' 'You! a soldier, Mongenod?' 'I will get myself killed, or

I will be General Mongenod.' 'Well,' I said, much moved, 'eat your breakfast in peace; I have a hundred louis.'

"At that point," said the goodman, interrupting himself and looking at Godefroid with a shrewd air, "I thought

"'That is all I possess in the world,' I said. 'I have been waiting for a fall in the Funds to invest that money; but

I will put it in your hands instead, and you shall consider me your partner; I will leave to your conscience the

duty of returning it to me in due time. The conscience of an honest man,' I said, 'is a better security than the

Funds.' Mongenod looked at me fixedly as I spoke, and seemed to be inlaying my words upon his heart. He

put out his right hand, I laid my left into it, and we held them together,I deeply moved, and he with two big

tears rolling down his cheeks. The sight of those tears wrung my heart. I was more moved still when

Mongenod pulled out a ragged foulard handkerchief to wipe them away. 'Wait here,' I said; and I went to my

secret hidingplace with a heart as agitated as though I had heard a woman say she loved me. I came back

with two rolls of fifty louis each. 'Here, count them.' He would not count them; and he looked about him for a

desk on which to write, he said, a proper receipt. I positively refused to take any paper. 'If I should die,' I said,

"Well," continued Monsieur Alain, smiling, "when Mongenod found me a good friend he ceased to look as

sad and anxious as when he entered; in fact, he became quite gay. My housekeeper gave us some oysters,

white wine, and an omelet, with broiled kidneys, and the remains of a pate my old mother had sent me; also

some dessert, coffee, and liqueur of the Iles. Mongenod, who had been starving for two days, was fed up. We

were so interested in talking about our life before the Revolution that we sat at table till three in the afternoon.

Mongenod told me how he had lost his fortune. In the first place, his father having invested the greater part of

his capital in city loans, when they fell Mongenod lost two thirds of all he had. Then, having sold his house in

the rue de Savoie, he was forced to receive the price in assignats. After that he took into his head to found a

newspaper, 'La Sentinelle;' that compelled him to fly at the end of six months. His hopes, he said, were now

fixed on the success of a comic opera called 'Les Peruviens.' When he said that I began to tremble. Mongenod

turned author, wasting his money on a newspaper, living no doubt in the theatres, connected with singers at

the Feydeau, with musicians, and all the queer people who lurk behind the scenes,to tell you the truth, he

didn't seem my Mongenod. I trembled. But how could I take back the hundred louis? I saw each roll in each

"Then," continued Monsieur Alain, and this time he sighed, "Mongenod went away. When I was alone, and

no longer in presence of hard and cruel poverty, I began, in spite of myself, to reflect. I was sobered.

'Mongenod,' thought I, 'is perhaps thoroughly depraved; he may have been playing a comedy at my expense.'

His gaiety, the moment I had handed over to him readily such a large sum of money, struck me then as being

too like the joy of the valets on the stage when they catch a Geronte. I ended, where I ought to have begun, by

resolving to make some investigations as to my friend Mongenod, who had given me his address,written

on the back of a playing card! I did not choose, as a matter of delicacy, to go and see him the next day; he

might have thought there was distrust in such promptness, as, indeed, there would have been. The second day

I had certain matters to attend to which took all my time, and it was only at the end of two weeks that, not

seeing or hearing of Mongenod, I went one morning from the Croix Rouge, where I was then living, to the

rue des Moineaux, where he lived. I found he was living in furnished lodgings of the lowest class; but the

landlady was a very worthy woman, the widow of a magistrate who had died on the scaffold; she was utterly

ruined by the Revolution, and had only a few louis with which to begin the hazardous trade of taking

Here Monsieur Alain interrupted himself to explain. "I knew her later," he said; "she then had seven houses in

"'The citizen Mongenod is not at home,' the landlady said to me; 'but there is some one there.' This remark

excited my curiosity. I went up to the fifth story. A charming person opened the door,oh, such a pretty

young woman! who looked at me rather suspiciously and kept the door half closed. 'I am Alain, a friend of

Mongenod's,' I said. Instantly the door opened wide, and I entered a miserable garret, which was,

nevertheless, kept with the utmost neatness. The pretty young woman offered me a chair before a fireplace

where were ashes but no fire, at the corner of which I saw a common earthen footwarmer. 'It makes me very

happy, monsieur,' she said, taking my hand and pressing it affectionately, 'to be able to express to you my

gratitude. You have indeed saved us. Were it not for you I might never have seen Mongenod again. He

might,yes, he would have thrown himself in the river. He was desperate when he left me to go and see

you.' On examining this person I was surprised to see her head tied up in a foulard, and along the temples a

curious dark line; but I presently saw that her head was shaved. 'Have you been ill?' I asked, as I noticed this

singularity. She cast a glance at a broken mirror in a shabby frame and colored; then the tears came into her

eyes. 'Yes, monsieur,' she said, 'I had horrible headaches, and I was obliged to have my hair cut off; it came

to my feet.' 'Am I speaking to Madame Mongenod?' I asked. 'Yes, monsieur,' she answered, giving me a truly

celestial look. I bowed to the poor little woman and went away, intending to make the landlady tell me

something about them; but she was out. I was certain that poor young woman had sold her hair to buy bread. I

went from there to a wood merchant and ordered half a cord of wood, telling the cartman and the sawyer to

take the bill, which I made the dealer receipt to the name of citizen Mongenod, and give it to the little

"There ends the period of what I long called my foolishness," said Monsieur Alain, clasping his hands and

Godefroid could not help smiling. He was, as we shall see, greatly mistaken in that smile.

"Two days later," resumed the worthy man, "I met one of those men who are neither friends nor strangers,

with whom we have relations from time to time, and call acquaintances,a certain Monsieur Barillaud, who

remarked accidentally, a propos of the 'Peruviens,' that the author was a friend of his. 'Then you know citizen

"In those days we were obliged by law to call each other 'citizen,'" said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid, by way

"The citizen looked at me, exclaiming, 'I wish I never had known him; for he has several times borrowed

money of me, and shown his friendship by not returning it. He is a queer fellow,goodhearted and all that,

but full of illusions! always an imagination on fire! I will do him this justice,he does not mean to deceive;

but as he deceives himself about everything, he manages to behave like a dishonest man.' 'How much does he

owe you?' I asked. 'Oh! a good many hundred francs. He's a basket with a hole in the bottom. Nobody knows

where his money goes; perhaps he doesn't know himself.' 'Has he any resources?' 'Well, yes,' said Barillaud,

laughing; 'just now he is talking of buying land among the savages in the United States.' I carried away with

me the drop of vinegar which casual gossip thus put into my heart, and it soured all my feelings. I went to see

my old master, in whose office Mongenod and I had studied law; he was now my counsel. When I told him

about my loan to Mongenod and the manner in which I had acted,'What!' he cried, 'one of my old clerks to

behave in that way! You ought to have put him off till the next day and come to see me. You would then have

found out that I have forbidden my clerks to let Mongenod into this office. Within the last year he has

borrowed three hundred francs of me in silver,an enormous sum at present rates. Three days before he

breakfasted with you I met him on the street, and he gave such a piteous account of his poverty that I let him

have two louis.' 'If I have been the dupe of a clever comedian,' I said to Bordin, 'so much the worse for him,

not for me. But tell me what to do.' 'You must try to get from him a written acknowledgment; for a debtor,

however, insolvent he may be, may become solvent, and then he will pay.' Thereupon Bordin took from a tin

box a case on which I saw the name of Mongenod; he showed me three receipts of a hundred francs each.

'The next time he comes I shall have him admitted, and I shall make him add the interest and the two louis,

and give me a note for the whole. I shall, at any rate, have things properly done, and be in a position to obtain

payment.' 'Well,' said I to Bordin, 'can you have my matter set right so far, as well as yours? for I know you

are a good man, and what you do will be right.' 'I have remained master of my ground,' he said; 'but when

persons behave as you have done they are at the mercy of a man who can snap his fingers at them. As for me,

I don't choose that any man should get the better of me,get the better of a former attorney to the

Chatelet!tara ra! Every man to whom a sum of money is lent as heedlessly as you lent yours to

Mongenod, ends, after a certain time, by thinking that money his own. It is no longer your money, it is

his money; you become his creditor,an inconvenient, unpleasant person. A debtor will then try to get rid of

you by some juggling with his conscience, and out of one hundred men in his position, seventyfive will do

their best never to see or hear of you again.' 'Then you think only twentyfive men in a hundred are honest?'

"Two weeks later I received a letter from Bordin asking me to go to his office and get my receipt. I went. 'I

tried to get fifty of your louis for you,' he said, 'but the birds had flown. Say goodby to your yellow boys;

those pretty canaries are off to other climes. You have had to do with a sharper; that's what he is. He declared

to me that his wife and fatherinlaw had gone to the United States with sixty of your louis to buy land; that

he intended to follow, for the purpose, he said, of making a fortune and paying his debts; the amount of

which, carefully drawn up, he confided to me, requesting me to keep an eye on what became of his creditors.

Here is a list of the items,' continued Bordin, showing me a paper from which he read the total, 'Seventeen

thousand francs in coin; a sum with which a house could be bought that would bring in two thousand francs a

year.' After replacing the list in the case, Bordin gave me a note for a sum equivalent to a hundred louis in

gold, with a letter in which Mongenod admitted having received my hundred louis, on which he owed

interest. 'So now I am all right,' I said to Bordin. 'He cannot deny the debt,' replied my old master; 'but where

there are no funds, even the kingI should say the Directorycan't enforce rights.' I went home. Believing

that I had been robbed in a way intentionally screened from the law, I withdrew my esteem from Mongenod,

"If I have dwelt on these details, which are so commonplace and seem so slight," said the worthy man,

looking at Godefroid, "it is not without good reason. I want to explain to you how I was led to act, as most

men act, in defiance of the rules which savages observe in the smallest matters. Many persons would justify

themselves by the opinion of so excellent a man as Bordin; but today I know myself to have been

inexcusable. When it comes to condemning one of our fellows, and withdrawing our esteem from him, we

should act from our own convictions only. But have we any right to make our heart a tribunal before which

we arraign our neighbor? Where is the law? what is our standard of judgment? That which in us is weakness

may be strength in our neighbor. So many beings, so many different circumstances for every act; and there

are no two beings exactly alike in all humanity. Society alone has the right over its members of repression; as

for punishment, I deny it that right. Repression suffices; and that, besides, brings with it punishment enough.

"So," resumed Monsieur Alain, continuing his history, having drawn from it that noble teaching, "after

listening to the gossip of the Parisian, and relying on the wisdom of my old master, I condemned Mongenod.

His play, 'Les Peruviens,' was announced. I expected to receive a ticket from Mongenod for the first

representation; I established in my own mind a sort of claim on him. It seemed to me that by reason of my

loan my friend was a sort of vassal of mine, who owed me a number of things besides the interest on my

money. We all think that. Mongenod not only did not send me a ticket, but I saw him from a distance coming

towards me in that dark passage under the Theatre Feydeau, well dressed, almost elegant; he pretended not to

see me; then, after he had passed and I turned to run after him, my debtor hastily escaped through a transverse

alley. This circumstance greatly irritated me; and the irritation, instead of subsiding with time, only increased,

and for the following reason: Some days after this encounter, I wrote to Mongenod somewhat in these terms:

'My friend, you ought not to think me indifferent to whatever happens to you of good or evil. Are you

satisfied with the success of 'Les Peruviens'? You forgot me (of course it was your right to do so) for the first

representation, at which I should have applauded you. But, nevertheless, I hope you found a Peru in your

Peruvians, for I have found a use for my funds, and shall look to you for the payment of them when the note

falls due. Your friend, Alain.' After waiting two weeks for an answer, I went to the rue des Moineaux. The

landlady told me that the little wife really did go away with her father at the time when Mongenod told

Bordin of their departure. Mongenod always left the garret very early in the morning and did not return till

late at night. Another two weeks, I wrote again, thus: 'My dear Mongenod, I cannot find you, and you do not

reply to my letters. I do not understand your conduct. If I behaved thus to you, what would you think of me?'

I did not subscribe the letter as before, 'Your friend,' I merely wrote, 'Kind regards.'

"Well, it was all of no use," said Monsieur Alain. "A month went by and I had no news of Mongenod. 'Les

Peruviens' did not obtain the great success on which he counted. I went to the twentieth representation,

thinking to find him and obtain my money. The house was less than half full; but Madame Scio was very

beautiful. They told me in the foyer that the play would run a few nights longer. I went seven different times

to Mongenod's lodging and did not find him; each time I left my name with the landlady. At last I wrote

again: 'Monsieur, if you do not wish to lose my respect, as you have my friendship, you will treat me now as

a stranger,that is to say, with politeness; and you will tell me when you will be ready to pay your note,

which is now due. I shall act according to your answer. Your obedient servant, Alain.' No answer. We were

then in 1799; one year, all but two months, had expired. At the end of those two months I went to Bordin.

Bordin took the note, had it protested, and sued Mongenod for me. Meantime the disasters of the French

armies had produced such depreciation of the Funds that investors could buy a fivefrancs dividend on seven

francs capital. Therefore, for my hundred louis in gold, I might have bought myself fifteen hundred francs of

income. Every morning, as I took my coffee and read the paper, I said to myself: 'That cursed Mongenod! if it

were not for him I should have three thousand francs a year to live on.' Mongenod became by bete noire; I

inveighed against him even as I walked the streets. 'Bordin is there,' I thought to myself; 'Bordin will put the

screws on, and a good thing, too.' My feelings turned to hatred, and my hatred to imprecations; I cursed the

man, and I believed he had every vice. 'Ah! Monsieur Barillaud was very right,' thought I, 'in all he told me!'"

"Yes," he said again, "I thought him very right in all he told me. At last, one morning, in came my debtor, no

more embarrassed than if he didn't owe me a sou. When I saw him I felt all the shame he ought to have felt. I

was like a criminal taken in the act; I was all upset. The eighteenth Brumaire had just taken place. Public

affairs were doing well, the Funds had gone up. Bonaparte was off to fight the battle of Marengo. 'It is

unfortunate, monsieur,' I said, receiving Mongenod standing, 'that I owe your visit to a sheriff's summons.'

Mongenod took a chair and sat down. 'I came to tell you,' he said, 'that I am totally unable to pay you.' 'You

made me miss a fine investment before the election of the First Consul,an investment which would have

given me a little fortune.' 'I know it, Alain,' he said, 'I know it. But what is the good of suing me and crushing

me with bills of costs? I have nothing with which to pay anything. Lately I received letters from my wife and

fatherinlaw; they have bought land with the money you lent me, and they send me a list of things they

need to improve it. Now, unless some one prevents it, I shall sail on a Dutch vessel from Flushing, whither I

have sent the few things I am taking out to them. Bonaparte has won the battle of Marengo, peace will be

signed, I may safely rejoin my family; and I have need to, for my dear little wife is about to give birth to a

child.' 'And so you have sacrificed me to your own interests?' said I. 'Yes,' he answered, 'for I believed you

my friend.' At that moment I felt myself inferior to Mongenod, so sublime did he seem to me as he said those

grand words. 'Did I not speak to you frankly,' he said, 'in this very room? I came to you, Alain, as the only

person who would really understand me. I told you that fifty louis would be lost, but a hundred I could return

to you. I did not bind myself by saying when; for how could I know the time at which my long struggle with

disaster would end? You were my last friend. All others, even our old master Bordin, despised me for the

very reason that I borrowed money of them. Oh! you do not know, Alain, the dreadful sensation which grips

the heart of an honest man when, in the throes of poverty, he goes to a friend and asks him for succor,and

all that follows! I hope you never may know it; it is far worse than the anguish of death. You have written me

letters which, if I had written them to you in a like situation, you would have thought very odious. You

expected of me that which it was out of my power to do. But you are the only person to whom I shall try to

justify myself. In spite of your severity, and though from being a friend you became a creditor on the day

when Bordin asked for my note on your behalf (thus abrogating the generous compact you had made with me

there, on that spot, when we clasped hands and mingled our tears),well, in spite of all that, I have

remembered that day, and because of it I have come here to say to you, You do not know misery, therefore do

not judge it. I have not had one moment when I could answer you. Would you have wished me to come here

and cajole you with words? I could not pay you; I did not even have enough for the bare necessities of those

whose lives depended on me. My play brought little. A novice in theatrical ways, I became a prey to

musicians, actors, journalists, orchestras. To get the means to leave Paris and join my family, and carry to

them the few things they need, I have sold "Les Peruviens" outright to the director, with two other pieces

which I had in my portfolio. I start for Holland without a sou; I must reach Flushing as best I can; my voyage

is paid, that is all. Were it not for the pity of my landlady, who has confidence in me, I should have to travel

on foot, with my bag upon my back. But, in spite of your doubts of me, I, remembering that without you I

never could have sent my wife and fatherinlaw to New York, am forever grateful to you. No, Monsieur

Alain, I shall not forget that the hundred louis d'or you lent me would have yielded you today fifteen

hundred francs a year.' 'I desire to believe you, Mongenod,' I said, shaken by the tone in which he made this

explanation. 'Ah, you no longer say monsieur to me!' he said quickly, with a tender glance. 'My God! I shall

quit France with less regret if I can leave one man behind me in whose eyes I am not half a swindler, nor a

spendthrift, nor a man of illusions! Alain, I have loved an angel in the midst of my misery. A man who truly

loves cannot be despicable.' At those words I stretched out my hand to him. He took it and wrung it. 'May

heaven protect you!' I said. 'Are we still friends?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied. 'It shall never be that my

childhood's comrade and the friend of my youth left me for America under the feeling that I was angry with

Monsieur Alain stopped in his narrative for an instant and looked at Godefroid. "I remember that day with

"A week or so later I met Bordin and told him of that interview. He smiled and said: 'I hope it was not a

pretty bit of comedy. Didn't he ask for anything?' 'No,' I answered. 'Well, he came to see me the same day. I

was almost as touched as you; and he asked me for means to get food on his journey. Well, well, time will

show!' These remarks of Bordin made me fear I had foolishly yielded to mistaken sensibility. 'Nevertheless,' I

said to myself, 'he, the old lawyer, did as I did.' I do not think it necessary to explain to you how I lost all, or

nearly all, my property. I had placed a little in the Funds, which gave me five hundred francs a year; all else

was gone. I was then thirtyfour years old. I obtained, through the influence of Monsieur Bordin, a place as

clerk, with a salary of eight hundred francs, in a branch office of the Montdepiete, rue des Augustins.[*]

From that time I lived very modestly. I found a small lodging in the rue des Marais, on the third floor (two

rooms and a closet), for two hundred and fifty francs a year. I dined at a common boardinghouse for forty

francs a month. I copied writings at night. Ugly as I was and poor, I had to renounce marriage."

[*] The MontdePiete and its branches are pawnshops under control of the government.TR.

As Godefroid heard this judgment which the poor man passed upon himself with beautiful simplicity and

resignation, he made a movement which proved, far more than any confidence in words could have done, the

resemblance of their destinies; and the goodman, in answer to that eloquent gesture, seemed to expect the

"Never!" he said; "except by Madame, who returns to us all the love we have for her,a love which I may

call divine. You must be aware of it. We live through her life as she lives through ours; we have but one soul

among us; and such pleasures, though they are not physical, are none the less intense; we exist through our

hearts. Ah, my child!" he continued, "when women come to appreciate moral qualities, they are indifferent to

"Under the Empire," said the worthy man, resuming his narrative, "the Funds did not always pay their

dividends regularly; it was necessary to be prepared for suspensions of payment. From 1802 to 1814 there

was scarcely a week that I did not attribute my misfortune to Mongenod. 'If it were not for Mongenod,' I used

to say to myself, 'I might have married. If I had never known him I should not be obliged to live in such

privation.' But then, again, there were other times when I said, 'Perhaps the unfortunate fellow has met with

ill luck over there.' In 1806, at a time when I found my life particularly hard to bear, I wrote him a long letter,

which I sent by way of Holland. I received no answer. I waited three years, placing all my hopes on that

answer. At last I resigned myself to my life. To the five hundred francs I received from the Funds I now

added twelve hundred from the Montde piete (for they raised my salary), and five hundred which I

obtained from Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, perfumer, for keeping his books in the evening. Thus, not only did I

manage to get along comfortably, but I laid by eight hundred francs a year. At the beginning of 1814 I

invested nine thousand francs of my savings at forty francs in the Funds, and thus I was sure of sixteen

hundred francs a year for my old age. By that time I had fifteen hundred a year from the Montdepiete, six

hundred for my bookkeeping, sixteen hundred from the Funds; in all, three thousand seven hundred francs a

year. I took a lodging in the rue de Seine, and lived a little better. My place had brought me into relations

with many unfortunates. For the last twelve years I had known better than any man whatsoever the misery of

the poor. Once or twice I had been able to do a real service. I felt a vivid pleasure when I found that out of ten

persons relieved, one or two households had been put on their feet. It came into my mind that benevolence

ought not to consist in throwing money to those who suffered. 'Doing charity,' to use that common

expression, seemed to me too often a premium offered to crime. I began to study the question. I was then fifty

years of age, and my life was nearly over. 'Of what good am I?' thought I. 'To whom can I leave my savings?

When I have furnished my rooms handsomely, and found a good cook, and made my life suitable in all

respects, what then?how shall I employ my time?' Eleven years of revolution, and fifteen years of poverty,

had, as I may say, eaten up the most precious parts of my life,used it up in sterile toil for my own

individual preservation. No man at the age of fifty could spring from that obscure, repressed condition to a

brilliant future; but every man could be of use. I understood by this time that watchful care and wise counsels

have tenfold greater value than money given; for the poor, above all things, need a guide, if only in the labor

they do for others, for speculators are never lacking to take advantage of them. Here I saw before me both an

end and an occupation, not to speak of the exquisite enjoyments obtained by playing in a miniature way the

"Ah! you want to know everything," said the old man. "No, no! Would you believe it," he continued after this

interruption, "the smallness of my means to do the work I now desired to do brought back the thought of

Mongenod. 'If it were not for Mongenod,' I kept saying to myself, 'I could do so much more. If a dishonest

man had not deprived me of fifteen hundred francs a year I could save this or that poor family.' Excusing my

own impotence by accusing another, I felt that the miseries of those to whom I could offer nothing but words

of consolation were a curse upon Mongenod. That thought soothed my heart. One morning, in January, 1816,

my housekeeper announced,whom do you suppose?Mongenod! Monsieur Mongenod! And whom do

you think I saw enter my room? The beautiful young woman I had once seen,only now she was thirtysix

years old,followed by her three children and Mongenod. He looked younger than when he went away; for

prosperity and happiness do shed a halo round their favorites. Thin, pale, yellow, shrivelled, when I last saw

him, he was now plump, sleek, rosy as a prebendary, and well dressed. He flung himself into my arms.

Feeling, perhaps, that I received him coldly, his first words were: 'Friend, I could not come sooner. The ocean

was not free to passenger ships till 1815; then it took me a year to close up my business and realize my

property. I have succeeded, my friend. When I received your letter in 1806, I started in a Dutch vessel to

bring you myself a little fortune; but the union of Holland with the French Empire caused the vessel to be

taken by the English and sent to Jamaica, from which island I escaped by mere chance. When I reached New

York I found I was a victim to the bankruptcy of others. In my absence my poor Charlotte had not been able

to protect herself against schemers. I was therefore forced to build up once more the edifice of my fortunes.

However, it is all done now, and here we are. By the way those children are looking at you, you must be

aware that we have often talked to them of their father's benefactor.' 'Oh, yes, yes, monsieur!' said the

beautiful Mongenod, 'we have never passed a single day without remembering you. Your share has been set

aside in all our affairs. We have looked forward eagerly to the happiness we now have in returning to you

your fortune, not thinking for a moment that the payment of these just dues can ever wipe out our debt of

gratitude.' With those words Madame Mongenod held out to me that magnificent box you see over there, in

"Mongenod looked at me fixedly and said: 'My poor Alain, you have suffered, I know; but we did divine your

sufferings; we did try every means to send the money to you, and failed in every attempt. You told me you

could not marry,that I had prevented it. But here is our eldest daughter; she has been brought up in the

thought of becoming your wife, and she will have a dowry of five hundred thousand francs.' 'God forbid that I

should make her miserable!' I cried hastily, looking at the girl, who was as beautiful as her mother when I

first saw her. I drew her to me to kiss her brow. 'Don't be afraid, my beautiful child!' I said. 'A man of fifty to

a girl of seventeen? never! and a man as plain and ugly as I am?never!' I cried. 'Monsieur,' she said, 'my

father's benefactor could not be ugly for me.' Those words, said spontaneously, with simple candor, made me

understand how true was all that Mongenod had said. I then gave him my hand, and we embraced each other

again. 'My friend,' I said, 'I have done you wrong. I have often accused you, cursed you.' 'You had the right to

do so, Alain,' he replied, blushing; 'you suffered, and through me.' I took Mongenod's note from my desk and

returned it to him. 'You will all stay and breakfast with me, I hope?' I said to the family. 'On condition that

you dine with us,' said Mongenod. 'We arrived yesterday. We are going to buy a house; and I mean to open a

banking business between Paris and North America, so as to leave it to this fellow here,' he added, showing

me his eldest son, who was fifteen years old. We spent the rest of the day together and went to the play; for

Mongenod and his family were actually hungry for the theatre. The next morning I placed the whole sum in

the Funds, and I now had in all about fifteen thousand francs a year. This fortune enabled me to give up

bookkeeping at night, and also to resign my place at the Montdepiete, to the great satisfaction of the

underling who stepped into my shoes. My friend died in 1827, at the age of sixtythree, after founding the

great bankinghouse of Mongenod and Company, which made enormous profits from the first loans under

the Restoration. His daughter, to whom he subsequently gave a million in dowry, married the Vicomte de

Fontaine. The eldest son, whom you know, is not yet married; he lives with his mother and brother. We

obtain from them all the sums we need. Frederic (his father gave him my name in America),Frederic

Mongenod is, at thirtyseven years of age, one of the ablest, and most upright, bankers in Paris. Not very

long ago Madame Mongenod admitted to me that she had sold her hair, as I suspected, for twelve francs to

buy bread. She gives me now twenty four cords of wood a year for my poor people, in exchange for the half

"This explains to me your relations with the house of Mongenod," said Godefroid,"and your fortune."

Again the goodman looked at Godefroid with a smile, and the same expression of kindly mischief.

"This conclusion, my dear Godefroid, made the deepest impression on me. If the man who had suffered so

"I resolved to devote all my superfluous meansabout ten thousand francs a yearto acts of intelligent

benevolence," continued Monsieur Alain, tranquilly. "About this time it was that I made the acquaintance of a

judge of the Lower Civil Court of the Seine named Popinot, whom we had the great grief of losing three

years ago, and who practised for fifteen years an active and most intelligent charity in the quartier

SaintMarcel. It was he, with the venerable vicar of NotreDame and Madame, who first thought of

founding the work in which we are now cooperating, and which, since 1825, has quietly done much good.

This work has found its soul in Madame de la Chanterie, for she is truly the inspiration of this enterprise. The

vicar has known how to make us more religious than we were at first, by showing us the necessity of being

virtuous ourselves in order to inspire virtue; in short, to preach by example. The farther we have advanced in

our work, the happier we have mutually found ourselves. And so, you see, it really was the repentance I felt

for misconceiving the heart of my friend which gave me the idea of devoting to the poor, through my own

hands, the fortune he returned to me, and which I accepted without objecting to the immensity of the sum

returned in proportion to the sum lent. Its destination justified my taking it."

This narration, made quietly, without assumption, but with a gentle kindliness in accent, look, and gesture,

would have inspired Godefroid to enter this noble and sacred association if his resolution had not already

"You know the world very little," he said, "if you have such scruples about a matter that would not weigh on

"I know only the unfortunate," said Monsieur Alain. "I do not desire to know a world in which men are so

little afraid of judging one another. But see! it is almost midnight, and I still have my chapter of the 'Imitation

Godefroid took the old man's hand and pressed it, with an expression of admiration.

"Impossible, without her consent," replied Monsieur Alain; "for it is connected with one of the most terrible

events of Imperial policy. It was through my friend Bordin that I first knew Madame. He had in his

possession all the secrets of that noble life; it was he who, if I may say so, led me to this house."

"I thank you," said Godefroid, "for having told me your life; there are many lessons in it for me."

"Tell me," said Godefroid, "for perhaps I may see something different in it from what you see."

"Well, it is this: that pleasure is an accident in a Christian's life; it is not the aim of it; and this we learn too

He pointed with his finger to some letters of gold on a black ground which the new lodger had not observed,

for this was the first time he had ever been in Monsieur Alain's room. Godefroid turned and read the words:

"That is our motto. If you become one of us, that will be your only commission. We read that commission,

which we have given to ourselves, at all times, in the morning when we rise, in the evening when we lie

down, and when we are dressing. Ah! if you did but know what immense pleasures there are in

"I must tell you that we are as rich as Baron de Nucingen himself. But the 'Imitation of Jesus Christ' forbids

us to regard our wealth as our own. We are only the spenders of it; and if we had any pride in being that, we

should not be worthy of dispensing it. It would not be transire benefaciendo; it would be inward enjoyment.

For if you say to yourself with a swelling of the nostrils, 'I play the part of Providence!' (as you might have

thought if you had been in my place this morning and saved the future lives of a whole family), you would

become a Sardanapalus,an evil one! None of these gentlemen living here thinks of himself when he does

good. All vanity, all pride, all selflove, must be stripped off, and that is hard to do,yes, very hard."

Godefroid bade him goodnight, and returned to his own room, deeply affected by this narrative. But his

curiosity was more whetted than satisfied, for the central figure of the picture was Madame de la Chanterie.

The history of the life of that woman became of the utmost importance to him, so that he made the obtaining

of it the object of his stay in that house. He already perceived in this association of five persons a vast

enterprise of Charity; but he thought far less of that than he did of its heroine.

The wouldbe disciple passed many days in observing more carefully than he had hitherto done the rare

persons among whom fate had brought him; and he became the subject of a moral phenomenon which

The sphere in which he lived had a positive action upon Godefroid. The laws which regulate the physical

nature under relation to the atmospheric environment in which it is developed, rule also in the moral nature.

Hence it follows that the assembling together of condemned prisoners is one of the greatest of social crimes;

and also that their isolation is an experiment of doubtful success. Condemned criminals ought to be in

religious institutions, surrounded by prodigies of Good, instead of being cast as they are into sight and

knowledge of Evil only. The Church can be expected to show an absolute devotion in this matter. If it sends

missionaries to heathen or savage nations, with how much greater joy would it welcome the mission of

redeeming the heathen of civilization? for all criminals are atheists, and often without knowing they are so.

Godefroid found these five associated persons endowed with the qualities they required in him. They were all

without pride, without vanity, truly humble and pious; also without any of the pretension which constitutes

devotion, using that word in its worst sense. These virtues were contagious; he was filled with a desire to

imitate these hidden heroes, and he ended by passionately studying the book he had begun by despising.

Within two weeks he reduced his views of life to its simplest lines,to what it really is when we consider it

from the higher point of view to which the Divine spirit leads us. His curiosityworldly at first, and excited

by many vulgar and material motivespurified itself; if he did not renounce it altogether, the fault was not

his; any one would have found it difficult to resign an interest in Madame de la Chanterie; but Godefroid

showed, without intending it, a discretion which was appreciated by these persons, in whom the divine Spirit

had developed a marvellous power of the faculties,as, indeed, it often does among recluses. The

concentration of the moral forces, no matter under what system it may be effected, increases the compass of

"Our friend is not yet converted," said the good Abbe de Veze, "but he is seeking to be."

An unforeseen circumstance brought about the revelation of Madame de la Chanterie's history to Godefroid;

and so fully was this made to him that the overpowering interest she excited in his soul was completely

The public mind was at that time much occupied by one of those horrible criminal trials which mark the

annals of our policecourts. This trial had gathered its chief interest from the character of the criminals

themselves, whose audacity, superior intelligence in evil, and cynical replies, had horrified the community. It

is a matter worthy of remark that no newspaper ever found its way into the hotel de la Chanterie, and

Godefroid only heard of the rejection of the criminals' appeal from his master in bookkeeping; for the trial

"Do you ever encounter," he said to his new friends, "such atrocious villains as those men? and if you do

"In the first place," said Monsieur Nicolas, "there are no atrocious villains. There are diseased natures, to be

cared for in asylums; but outside of those rare medical cases, we find only persons who are without religion,

or who reason ill; and the mission of charity is to teach them the right use of reason, to encourage the weak,

"And," said the Abbe de Veze, "all is possible to such teachers, for God is with them."

"If they were to send you those criminals, you could do nothing with them, could you?" asked Godefroid.

"In general," said Monsieur Nicolas, "persons turn over to religion souls which have reached the last stages of

evil, and leave it no time to do its work. The criminals of whom you speak were men of remarkable vigor;

could they have been within our hands in time they might have become distinguished men; but as soon as

they committed a murder, it was no longer possible to interfere; they then belonged to human justice."

"Do not ever mention the penalty of death again before Monsieur Nicolas," said Monsieur Alain. "He

recognized in a criminal at whose execution he was officially present his natural son."

Madame de la Chanterie, who had been absent for a while, returned to the salon at this moment.

"But you must admit," said Godefroid, addressing Monsieur Joseph, "that society cannot exist without the

death penalty, and that those persons who tomorrow morning will have their heads cut"

Godefroid felt his mouth suddenly closed by a vigorous hand, and he saw the abbe leading away Madame de

"What have you done?" Monsieur Joseph said to him. "Take him away, Alain!" he added, removing the hand

with which he had gagged Godefroid. Then he followed the Abbe de Veze into Madame de la Chanterie's

"Come!" said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid; "you have made it essential that I should tell you the secrets of

"Well?" said Godefroid, whose face showed plainly his regret for having been the cause of something which,

"I am waiting till Manon comes to reassure us," replied the goodman, listening to the steps of the maid upon

"Madame is better," said Manon. "Monsieur l'abbe has deceived her as to what was said." And she looked at

"Come, sit down," said Monsieur Alain, sitting down himself. Then he made a pause as if to gather up his

ideas. "I don't know," he went on, "if I have the talent to worthily relate a life so cruelly tried. You must

excuse me if the words of so poor a speaker as I are beneath the level of its actions and catastrophes.

Remember that it is long since I left school, and that I am the child of a century in which men cared more for

thought than for effect,a prosaic century which knew only how to call things by their right names."

Godefroid made an acquiescing gesture, with an expression of sincere admiration, and said simply, "I am

"You have just had a proof, my young friend," resumed the old man, "that it is impossible you should remain

among us without knowing at least some of the terrible facts in the life of that saintly woman. There are ideas

and illusions and fatal words which are completely interdicted in this house, lest they reopen wounds in

"If Monsieur Joseph had not stopped the words on your lips, you were about to speak of that fatal instrument

of death, and that would have stricken down Madame de la Chanterie like a thunderbolt. It is time you should

know all, for you will really belong to us before long,we all think so. Here, then, is the history of her

"Madame de la Chanterie," he went on, after a pause, "comes from one of the first families of Lower

Normandy. Her maiden name was Mademoiselle BarbePhiliberte de Champignelles, of the younger branch

of that house. She was destined to take the veil unless she could make a marriage which renounced on the

husband's side the dowry her family could not give her. This was frequently the case in the families of poor

"A Sieur de la Chanterie, whose family had fallen into obscurity, though it dates from the Crusade of Philip

Augustus, was anxious to recover the rank and position which this ancient lineage properly gave him in the

province of Normandy. This gentleman had doubly derogated from his rightful station; for he had amassed a

fortune of nearly a million of francs as purveyor to the armies of the king at the time of the war in Hanover.

The old man had a son; and this son, presuming on his father's wealth (greatly exaggerated by rumor), was

"The word of Mademoiselle de Champignelle's character was well known in the Bessin,that beautiful

region of Lower Normandy near Bayeux, where the family lived. The old man, whose little estate of la

Chanterie was between Caen and SaintLo, often heard regrets expressed before him that so perfect a young

girl, and one so capable of rendering a husband happy, should be condemned to pass her life in a convent.

When, on reflection, he expressed a desire to know more of the young lady, the hope was held out to him of

obtaining the hand of Mademoiselle Philiberte for his son, provided he would take her without dowry. He

went to Bayeux, had several interviews with the Champignelles's family, and was completely won by the

"At sixteen years of age, Mademoiselle de Champignelles gave promise of what she would ultimately

become. It was easy to see in her a living piety, an unalterable good sense, an inflexible uprightness, and one

of those souls which never detach themselves from an affection under any compulsion. The old father,

enriched by his extortions in the army, recognized in this charming girl a woman who could restrain his son

by the power of virtue, and by the ascendancy of a nature that was firm without rigidity.

"You have seen her," said Monsieur Alain, pausing in his narrative, "and you know that no one can be gentler

than Madame de la Chanterie; and also, I may tell you, that no one is more confiding. She has kept, even to

her declining years, the candor and simplicity of innocence; she has never been willing to believe in evil, and

the little mistrust you may have noticed in her is due only to her terrible misfortunes.

"The old man," said Monsieur Alain, continuing, "agreed with the Champignelles family to give a receipt for

the legal dower of Mademoiselle Philiberte (this was necessary in those days); but in return, the

Champignelles, who were allied to many of the great families, promised to obtain the erection of the little fief

of la Chanterie into a barony; and they kept their word. The aunt of the future husband, Madame de

Boisfrelon, the widow of a parliamentary councillor, promised to bequeath her whole fortune to her nephew.

"When these arrangements had been completed by the two families, the father sent for the son. At this time

the latter was Master of petitions to the Grand Council. He was twentyfive years of age, and had already

lived a life of folly with all the young seigneurs of the period; in fact, the old purveyor had been forced more

than once to pay his debts. The poor father, foreseeing further follies, was only too glad to make a settlement

on his daughterinlaw of a certain sum; and he entailed the estate of la Chanterie on the heirs male of the

"But the Revolution," said Monsieur Alain in a parenthesis, "made that last precaution useless.

"Gifted with the beauty of an angel," he continued, "and with wonderful grace and agility in all exercises of

the body, the young Master of petitions possessed the gift of charm. Mademoiselle de Champignelles

became, as you can readily believe, very much in love with her husband. The old man, delighted with the

outset of the marriage, and believing in the reform of his son, sent the young couple to Paris. All this

"Nearly a whole year of happiness followed. Madame de la Chanterie enjoyed during that time the tenderest

care and the most delicate attentions that a man deeply in love can bestow upon a loving woman. However

short it may have been, the honeymoon did shine into the heart of that noble and most unfortunate woman.

You know that in those days women nursed their children. Madame de la Chanterie had a daughter. That

period during which a woman ought to be the object of redoubled care and tenderness proved, in this case, the

beginning of untold miseries. The Master of petitions was obliged to sell all the property he could lay his

hands on to pay former debts (which he had not acknowledged to his father) and fresh losses at play. Then the

National Assembly decreed the dissolution of the Grand Council, the parliament, and all the law offices so

"The young household, increased by a daughter, was soon without other means than those settled upon

Madame de la Chanterie by her fatherin law. In twenty months that charming woman, now only seventeen

and a half years old, was obliged to liveshe and the child she was nursing in an obscure quarter, and by

the labor of her hands. She was then entirely abandoned by her husband, who fell by degrees lower and

lower, into the society of women of the worst kind. Never did she reproach her husband, never has she

allowed herself to blame him. She has sometimes told us how, during those wretched days, she would pray

"That scamp was named Henri," said the worthy man interrupting himself. "We never mention that name

"Never leaving her little room in the rue de la Corderie du Temple, except to buy provisions or to fetch her

work, Madame de la Chanterie contrived to get along, thanks to a hundred francs which her father inlaw,

touched by her goodness, sent to her once a month. Nevertheless, foreseeing that that resource might fail her,

the poor young woman had taken up the hard and toilsome work of corsetmaking in the service of a

celebrated dressmaker. This precaution proved a wise one. The father died, and his property was obtained by

the son (the old monarchical laws of entail being then overthrown) and speedily dissipated by him. The

former Master of petitions was now one of the most ferocious presidents of the Revolutionary tribunals of

that period; he became the terror of Normandy, and was able to satisfy all his passions. Imprisoned in his turn

after the fall of Robespierre, the hatred of his department doomed him to certain death.

"Madame de la Chanterie heard of this through a letter of farewell which her husband wrote to her. Instantly,

giving her little girl to the care of a neighbor, she went to the town where that wretch was imprisoned, taking

with her the few louis which were all that she owned. These louis enabled her to make her way into the

prison. She succeeded in saving her husband by dressing him in her own clothes, under circumstances almost

identical with those which, sometime later, were so serviceable to Madame de la Valette. She was condemned

to death, but the government was ashamed to carry out the sentence; and the Revolutionary tribunal (the one

over which her husband had formerly presided) connived at her escape. She returned to Paris on foot, without

"Ah! wait," said Monsieur Alain; "that is nothing. In eight years the poor woman saw her husband three

times. The first time he stayed twentyfour hours in the humble lodging of his wife, and carried away with

him all her money; having showered her with marks of tenderness and made her believe in his complete

conversion. 'I could not,' she said, 'refuse a husband for whom I prayed daily and of whom I thought

exclusively.' On the second occasion, Monsieur de la Chanterie arrived almost dying, and with what an

illness! She nursed him and saved his life. Then she tried to bring him to better sentiments and a decent life.

After promising all that angel asked, the jacobin plunged back into frightful profligacy, and finally escaped

the hands of justice only by again taking refuge with his wife, in whose care he died in safety.

"Oh! but that is nothing!" cried the goodman, seeing the pain on Godefroid's face. "No one, in the world in

which he lived, had known he was a married man. Two years after his death Madame de la Chanterie

discovered that a second Madame de la Chanterie existed, widowed like herself, and, like her, ruined. That

"Towards 1803," resumed Alain after a pause, "Monsieur de Boisfrelon, uncle of Madame de la Chanterie,

came to Paris, his name having been erased from the list of emigres, and brought Madame the sum of two

hundred thousand francs which her fatherinlaw, the old purveyor, had formerly entrusted to him for the

benefit of his son's children. He persuaded the widow to return to Normandy; where she completed the

education of her daughter and purchased on excellent terms and still by the advice of her uncle, a patrimonial

"All that is still nothing," said Monsieur Alain; "we have not yet reached the period of storms and darkness. I

"In 1807, after four years of rest and peace, Madame de la Chanterie married her daughter to a gentleman of

rank, whose piety, antecedents, and fortune offered every guarantee that could be given,a man who, to use

a popular saying, 'was after every one's own heart,' in the best society of the provincial city where Madame

and her daughter passed their winters. I should tell you that this society was composed of seven or eight

families belonging to the highest nobility in France: d'Esgrignon, Troisville, Casteran, Nouatre, etc. At the

end of eighteen months the baron deserted his wife, and disappeared in Paris, where he changed his name.

"Madame de la Chanterie never knew the causes of this desertion until the lightning of a dreadful storm

revealed them. Her daughter, brought up with anxious care and trained in the purest religious sentiments, kept

total silence as to her troubles. This lack of confidence in her mother was a painful blow to Madame de la

Chanterie. Already she had several times noticed in her daughter indications of the reckless disposition of the

"The husband, however, abandoned his home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition.

Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have

prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor's fortune

was clear and sound, and that no mortgages were on his estate. Nevertheless it appeared, after the husband's

departure, that for ten years his debts had exceeded the entire value of his property. Everything was therefore

sold, and the poor young wife, now reduced to her own means, came back to her mother. Madame de la

Chanterie knew later that the most honorable persons of the province had vouched for her soninlaw in their

own interests; for he owed them all large sums of money, and they looked upon his marriage with

"There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will find later in a confidential paper

written for the eyes of the Emperor. Moreover, this man had long courted the goodwill of the royalist

families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution. He was one of Louis XVIII.'s most active

emissaries, and had taken part after 1793 in all conspiracies,escaping their penalties, however, with such

singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted. Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but

completely set aside in the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much encumbered

"These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into the secrets of the royal closet kept silence

about so dangerous a coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence in a city devoted

to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare. The

d'Esgrignons, Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and the Church opened their

arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him into their circle. Their protection was encouraged by the desire of

his creditors for the payment of his debts. For three years this man, who was a villain at heart, a pendant to

the late Baron de la Chanterie, contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality and

"During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind

by his doctrines (if it can be said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he spoke of

sacred principles. From the time of his return to the provinces this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with

a young man, overwhelmed with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and courageous

as the baron's was hypocritical and base. This frequent guest, whose accomplishments, strong character, and

adventurous life were calculated to influence a young girl's mind, was an instrument in the hands of the

husband to bring the wife to adopt his theories. Never did she let her mother know the abyss into which her

"We may well distrust all human prudence when we think of the infinite precautions taken by Madame de la

Chanterie in marrying her only daughter. The blow, when it came to a life so devoted, so pure, so truly

religious as that of a woman already tested by many trials, gave Madame de la Chanterie a distrust of herself

which served to isolate her from her daughter; and all the more because her daughter, in compensation for her

misfortunes, exacted complete liberty, ruled her mother, and was even, at times, unkind to her.

"Wounded thus in all her affections, mistaken in her devotion and love for her husband, to whom she had

sacrificed without a word her happiness, her fortune, and her life; mistaken in the education exclusively

religious which she had given to her daughter; mistaken in the confidence she had placed in others in the

affair of her daughter's marriage; and obtaining no justice from the heart in which she had sown none but

noble sentiments, she united herself still more closely to God as the hand of trouble lay heavy upon her. She

was indeed almost a nun; going daily to church, performing cloistral penances, and practising economy that

"Could there be, up to this point, a saintlier life or one more tried than that of this noble woman, so gentle

under misfortune, so brave in danger, and always Christian?" said Monsieur Alain, appealing to Godefroid.

"You know Madame now,you know if she is wanting in sense, judgment, reflection; in fact, she has those

qualities to the highest degree. Well! the misfortunes I have now told you, which might be said to make her

life surpass all others in adversity, are as nothing to those that were still in store for this poor woman. But

now let us concern ourselves exclusively with Madame de la Chanterie's daughter," said the old man,

"At eighteen years of age, the period of her marriage, Mademoiselle de la Chanterie was a young girl of

delicate complexion, brown in tone with a brilliant color, graceful in shape, and very pretty. Above a

forehead of great beauty was a mass of dark hair which harmonized with the brown eyes and the general

gaiety of her expression. A certain daintiness of feature was misleading as to her true character and her

almost virile decision. She had small hands and small feet; in fact, there was something fragile about her

whole person which excluded the idea of vigor and determination. Having always lived beside her mother,

she had a most perfect innocence of thought and behavior and a really remarkable piety. This young girl, like

her mother, was fanatically attached to the Bourbons; she was therefore a bitter enemy to the Revolution, and

regarded the dominion of Napoleon as a curse inflicted by Providence upon France in punishment of the

"The conformity of opinion on this subject between Madame de la Chanterie and her daughter, and the

"The friend of the husband had commanded a body of Chouans at the time that hostilities were renewed in

1799; and it seems that the baron's object (Madame de la Chanterie's soninlaw was a baron) in fostering

the intimacy between his wife and his friend was to obtain, through her influence, certain succor from that

"This requires a few words of explanation," said Monsieur Alain, interrupting his narrative, "about an

association which in those days made a great deal of noise. I mean the 'Chauffeurs.'[*] Every province in the

west of France was at that time more or less overrun with these 'brigands,' whose object was far less pillage

than a resurrection of the royalist warfare. They profited, so it was said, by the great number of

'refractories,'the name applied to those who evaded the conscription, which was at that time, as you

[*] Chauffeurs. This name applies to royalists who robbed the mail coaches conveying government funds,

and levied tribute on those who bought the confiscated property of emigres at the West. When the

Thermidorian reaction began, after the fall of Robespierre, other companies of royalists, chiefly young nobles

who had not emigrated, were formed at the South and East under various names, such as "The Avengers,"

and "The Company of Jehu," who stopped the diligences containing government money, which they

transmitted to Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the royalist troops. They regarded this as legitimate

warfare, and were scrupulous not to touch private property. When captured, however, they were tried and

"Between Mortagne and Rennes, and even beyond, as far as the banks of the Loire, nocturnal expeditions

were organized, which attacked, especially in Normandy, the holders of property bought from the National

domain.[*] These armed bands sent terror throughout those regions. I am not misleading you when I ask you

to observe that in certain departments the action of the laws was for a long time paralyzed.

[*] The National domain was the name given to the confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from

"These last echoes of the civil war made much less noise than you would imagine, accustomed as we are now

to the frightful publicity given by the press to every trial, even the least important, whether political or

individual. The system of the Imperial government was that of all absolute governments. The censor allowed

nothing to be published in the matter of politics except accomplished facts, and those were travestied. If you

will take the trouble to look through files of the 'Moniteur' and the other newspapers of that time, even those

of the West, you will not find a word about the four or five criminal trials which cost the lives of sixty or

eighty 'brigands.' The term brigands, applied during the revolutionary period to the Vendeans, Chouans, and

all those who took up arms for the house of Bourbon, was afterwards continued judicially under the Empire

against all royalists accused of plots. To some ardent and loyal natures the emperor and his government were

the enemy; any form of warfare against them was legitimate. I am only explaining to you these opinions, not

"Now," he said, after one of those pauses which are necessary in such long narratives, "if you realize how

these royalists, ruined by the civil war of 1793, were dominated by violent passions, and how some

exceptional natures (like that of Madame de la Chanterie's soninlaw and his friend) were eaten up with

desires of all kinds, you may be able to understand how it was that the acts of brigandage which their political

views justified when employed against the government in the service of the good cause, might in some cases

"The younger of the two men had been for some time employed in collecting the scattered fragments of

Chouannerie, and was holding them ready to act at an opportune moment. There came a terrible crisis in the

Emperor's career when, shut up in the island of Lobau, he seemed about to give way under the combined and

simultaneous attack of England and Austria. This was the moment for the Chouan uprising; but just as it was

about to take place, the victory of Wagram rendered the conspiracy in the provinces powerless.

"This expectation of exciting civil war in Brittany, La Vendee, and part of Normandy, coincided in time with

the final wreck of the baron's fortune; and this wreck, coming at this time, led him to undertake an expedition

to capture funds of the government which he might apply to the liquidation of the claims upon his property.

But his wife and friend refused to take part in applying to private interests the money taken by armed force

from the Receiver's offices and the couriers and postcarriages of the government,money taken, as they

thought, justifiably by the rules of war to pay the regiments of 'refractories' and Chouans, and purchase the

arms and ammunition with which to equip them. At last, after an angry discussion in which the young leader,

supported by the wife, positively refused to hand over to the husband a portion of the large sum of money

which the young leader had seized for the benefit of the royal armies from the treasury of the West, the baron

suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, to avoid arrest for debt, having no means left by which to ward it off.

Poor Madame de la Chanterie was wholly ignorant of these facts; but even they are nothing to the plot still

"It is too late tonight," said Monsieur Alain, looking at his little clock, "to go on with my narrative, which

would take me, in any case, a long time to finish in my own words. Old Bordin, my friend, whose

management of the famous Simeuse case had won him much credit in the royalist party, and who pleaded in

the wellknown criminal affair called that of the Chauffeurs de Mortagne, gave me, after I was installed in

this house, two legal papers relating to the terrible history of Madame de la Chanterie and her daughter. I kept

them because Bordin died soon after, before I had a chance to return them. You shall read them. You will

find the facts much more succinctly stated than I could state them. Those facts are so numerous that I should

only lose myself in the details and confuse them, whereas in those papers you have them in a legal summary.

Tomorrow, if you come to me, I will finish telling you all that relates to Madame de la Chanterie; for you

will then know the general facts so thoroughly that I can end the whole story in a few words."

Monsieur Alain placed the papers, yellowed by time, in Godefroid's hand; the latter, bidding the old man

goodnight, carried them off to his room, where he read, before he slept, the following document:

The attorneygeneral to the Imperial Court of Caen, appointed to fulfil his functions before the Special

Criminal Court established by imperial decree under date September, 1809, and sitting at Alencon, states to

the Imperial Court the following facts which have appeared under the above procedure.

The plot of a company of brigands, evidently long planned with consummate care, and connected with a

scheme for inciting the Western departments to revolt, has shown itself in certain attempts against the private

property of citizens, but more especially in an armed attack and robbery committed on the mail coach which

transported, May , 18, the money in the treasury at Caen to the Treasury of France. This attack, which

recalls the deplorable incidents of a civil war now happily extinguished, manifests a spirit of wickedness

Let us pass to the facts. The plot is complicated, the details are numerous. The investigation has lasted one

year; but the evidence, which has followed the crime step by step, has thrown the clearest light on its

The conception of the plot was formed by one CharlesAmedeeLouis Joseph Rifoel, calling himself

Chevalier du Vissard, born at the Vissard, district of SaintMexme, near Ernee, and a former leader of the

This criminal, whom H.M. the Emperor and King pardoned at the time of the general pacification, and who

has profited by the sovereign's magnanimity to commit other crimes, has already paid on the scaffold the

penalty of his many misdeeds; but it is necessary to recall some of his actions, because his influence was

great on the guilty persons now before the court, and he is closely connected with the facts of his case.

This dangerous agitator, concealed, according to the usual custom of the rebels, under the name of Pierrot,

went from place to place throughout the departments of the West gathering together the elements of rebellion;

but his chief resort was the chateau of SaintSavin, the residence of a Madame Lechantre and her daughter, a

Madame Bryond, situated in the district of SaintSavin, arrondissement of Mortagne. Several of the most

horrible events of the rebellion of 1799 are connected with this strategic point. Here a bearer of despatches

was murdered, his carriage pillaged by the brigands under command of a woman, assisted by the notorious

An intimacy, which we shall not attempt to characterize, existed for more than a year between the woman

It was in this district that an interview took place, in April, 1808, between Rifoel and a certain Boislaurier, a

leader known by the name of August in the baneful rebellions of the West, who instigated the affair now

The somewhat obscure point of the relations between these two leaders is cleared up by the testimony of

numerous witnesses, and also by the judgment of the court which condemned Rifoel.

From that time Boislaurier had an understanding with Rifoel, and they acted in concert.

They communicated to each other, at first secretly, their infamous plans, encouraged by the absence of His

Imperial and Royal Majesty with the armies in Spain. Their scheme was to obtain possession of the money of

Some time after this, one named Dubut, of Caen, sent an emissary to the chateau of SaintSavin named

Hileycommonly called "The Laborer," long known as a highwayman, a robber of diligencesto give

It was thus by means of Hiley that the plotters obtained, from the beginning, the cooperation of one

Herbomez, otherwise called General Hardi, a former rebel of the same stamp as Rifoel, and like him faithless

Herbomez and Hiley recruited from the surrounding districts seven brigands whose names are:

1. Jean Cibot, called PilleMiche, one of the boldest brigands of the corps formed by Montauran in the year

VII., and a participator in the attack upon the courier of Mortagne and his murder.

2. Francois Lisieux, called GrandFils, refractory of the department of the Mayenne.

4. Gabriel Bruce, called GrosJean, one of the most ferocious Chouans of Fontaine's division.

5. Jacques Horeau, called Stuart, exlieutenant in the same brigade, one of the confederates of Tinteniac,

6. MarieAnne Cabot, called Lajeunesse, former huntsman to the Sieur Carol of Alencon.

These confederates were lodged in three different districts, in the houses of the following named persons:

Binet, Melin, and Laraviniere, innkeepers or publicans, and all devoted to Rifoel.

The necessary arms were supplied by one JeanFrancois Leveille, notary; an incorrigible assistant of the

brigands, and their go between with certain hidden leaders; also by one Felix Courceuil, commonly called

Confesseur, former surgeon of the rebel armies of La Vendee; both these men are from Alencon.

Eleven muskets were hidden in a house belonging to the Sieur Bryond in the faubourg of Alencon, where

When the Sieur Bryond left his wife to pursue the fatal course she had chosen, these muskets, mysteriously

taken from the said house, were transported by the woman Bryond in her own carriage to the chateau of

It was then that the acts of brigandage in the department of the Orne and the adjacent departments took

place,acts that amazed both the authorities and the inhabitants of those regions, which had long been

entirely pacificated; acts, moreover, which proved that these odious enemies of the government and the

French Empire were in the secret of the coalition of 1809 through communication with the royalist party in

The notary Leveille, the woman Bryond, Dubut of Caen, Herbomez of Mayenne, Boislaurier of Mans, and

Rifoel, were therefore the heads of the association, which was composed of certain guilty persons already

condemned to death and executed with Rifoel, certain others who are the accused persons at present under

trial, and a number more who have escaped just punishment by flight or by the silence of their accomplices.

It was Dubut who, living near Caen, notified the notary Leveille when the government money contained in

We must remark here that after the time of the removal of the muskets, Leveille, who went to see Bruce,

Grenier, and Cibot in the house of Melin, found them hiding the muskets in a shed on the premises, and

A general rendezvous was arranged to take place at Mortagne, in the hotel de l'Ecu de France. All the accused

persons were present under various disguises. It was then that Leveille, the woman Bryond, Dubut,

Herbomez, Boislaurier and Hiley (the ablest of the secondary accomplices, as Cibot was the boldest) obtained

the cooperation of one Vauthier, called VieuxChene, a former servant of the famous Longuy, and now

hostler of the hotel. Vauthier agreed to notify the woman Bryond of the arrival and departure of the diligence

The woman Bryond collected the scattered brigands at the chateau de SaintSavin, a few miles from

Mortagne, where she had lived with her mother since the separation from her husband. The brigands, with

Hiley at their head, stayed at the chateau for several days. The woman Bryond, assisted by her maid Godard,

prepared with her own hands the food of these men. She had already filled a loft with hay, and there the

provisions were taken to them. While awaiting the arrival of the government money these brigands made

nightly sorties from SaintSavin, and the whole region was alarmed by their depredations. There is no doubt

that the outrages committed at la Sartiniere, at Vonay, and at the chateau of SaintSeny, were committed by

this band, whose boldness equals their criminality, though they were able to so terrify their victims that the

latter have kept silence, and the authorities have been unable to obtain any testimony from them.

While thus putting under contribution those persons in the neighborhood who had purchased lands of the

National domain, these brigands carefully explored the forest of Chesnay which they selected as the theatre of

Not far from this forest is the village of Louvigney. An inn is kept there by the brothers Chaussard, formerly

gamekeepers on the Troisville estate, which inn was made the final rendezvous of the brigands. These

brothers knew beforehand the part they were to play in the affair. Courceuil and Boislaurier had long made

overtures to them to revive their hatred against the government of our august Emperor, telling them that

among the guests who would be sent to them would be certain men of their acquaintance, the dreaded Hiley

Accordingly, on the 6th, the seven bandits, under Hiley, arrived at the inn of the brothers Chaussard, and

there they spent two days. On the 8th Hiley led off his men, saying they were going to a palace about nine

miles distant, and asking the brothers to send provisions for them to a certain fork in the road not far distant

Two persons on horseback, who were undoubtedly Rifoel and the woman Bryond (for it is stated that this

woman accompanied Rifoel on these expeditions on horseback and dressed as a man), arrived during the

The next day Hiley wrote a letter to the notary Leveille, which one of the Chaussard brothers took to the

Two hours later Rifoel and the woman Bryond returned and had an interview with Hiley.

It was then found necessary to obtain an axe to open, as we shall see, the cases containing the money. The

notary went with the woman Bryond to SaintSavin, where they searched in vain for an axe. The notary

returned alone; half way back he met Hiley, to whom he stated that they could not obtain an axe.

Hiley returned to the inn, where he ordered supper for ten persons; seven of them being the brigands, who

had now returned, fully armed. Hiley made them stack their arms in the military manner. They then sat down

to table and supped in haste. Hiley ordered provisions prepared to take away with him. Then he took the elder

Chaussard aside and asked him for an axe. The innkeeper who, if we believe him, was surprised, refused to

give one. Courceuil and Boislaurier arrived; the night wore on; the three men walked the floor of their room

discussing the plot. Courceuil, called "Confesseur," the most wily of the party, obtained an axe; and about

Every moment was of value; the execution of the crime was fixed for that night. Hiley, Courceuil, and

Boislaurier led and placed their men. Hiley hid in ambush with Minard, Cabot, and Bruce at the right of the

Chesnay forest; Boislaurier, Grenier, and Horeau took the centre; Courceuil, Herbomez, and Lisieux occupied

the ravine to the left of the wood. All these positions are indicated on the groundplan drawn by the engineer

The diligence, which had left Mortagne about one in the morning, was driven by one Rousseau, whose

conduct proved so suspicious that his arrest was judged necessary. The vehicle, driven slowly, would arrive

A single gendarme accompanied the diligence, which would stop for breakfast at Donnery. Three passengers

The driver, who had driven very slowly to the bridge of Chesnay at the entrance of the wood, now hastened

his horses with a vigor and eagerness remarked by the passengers, and turned into a cross road, called the

road of Senzey. The carriage was thus out of sight; and the gendarme with the three young men were

hurrying to overtake it when they heard a shout: "Halt!" and four shots were fired at them.

The gendarme, who was not hit, drew his sabre and rushed in the direction of the vehicle. He was stopped by

four armed men, who fired at him; his eagerness saved him, for he ran toward one of the three passengers to

tell him to make for Chesnay and ring the tocsin. But two brigands followed him, and one of them, taking

aim, sent a ball through his left shoulder, which broke his arm, and he fell helpless.

The shouts and firing were heard in Donnery. A corporal stationed there and one gendarme ran toward the

sounds. The firing of a squad of men took them to the opposite side of the wood to that where the pillage was

taking place. The noise of the firing prevented the corporal from hearing the cries of the wounded gendarme;

but he did distinguish a sound which proved to be that of an axe breaking and chopping into cases. He ran

toward the sound. Meeting four armed bandits, he called out to them, "Surrender, villains!"

They replied: "Stay where you are, or you are a dead man!" The corporal sprang forward; two shots were

fired and one struck him; a ball went through his left leg and into the flank of his horse. The brave man,

bathed in blood, was forced to give up the unequal fight; he shouted "Help! the brigands are at Chesnay!" but

The robbers, masters of the ground thanks to their numbers, ransacked the coach. They had gagged and

bound the driver by way of deception. The cases were opened, the bags of money were thrown out; the horses

were unharnessed and the silver and gold loaded on their backs. Three thousand francs in copper were

rejected; but a sum in other coin of one hundred and three thousand francs was safely carried off on the four

The brigands took the road to the hamlet of Menneville, which is close to SaintSavin. They stopped with

their plunder at an isolated house belonging to the Chaussard brothers, where the Chaussards' uncle, one

Bourget, lived, who was knowing to the whole plot from its inception. This old man, aided by his wife,

welcomed the brigands, charged them to make no noise, unloaded the bags of money, and gave the men

something to drink. The wife performed the part of sentinel. The old man then took the horses through the

wood, returned them to the driver, unbound the latter, and also the young men, who had been garotted. After

resting for a time, Courceuil, Hiley, and Boislaurier paid their men a paltry sum for their trouble, and the

When they reached a lonely place called ChampLandry, these criminals, obeying the impulse which leads

all malefactors into the blunders and miscalculations of crime, threw their guns into a wheatfield. This

action, done by all of them, is a proof of their mutual understanding. Struck with terror at the boldness of

The robbery now having been committed, with the additional features of assault and assassination, other facts

and other actors appear, all connected with the robbery itself and with the disposition of the plunder.

Rifoel, concealed in Paris, whence he pulled every wire of the plot, transmits to Leveille an order to send him

Courceuil, knowing to all the facts, sends Hiley to tell Leveille of the success of the attempt, and say that he

Vauthier, on whose fidelity they think they can rely, agrees to go to Bourget, the uncle of the Chaussards, in

whose care the money was left, and ask for the booty. The old man tells Vauthier that he must go to his

nephews, who have taken large sums to the woman Bryond. But he orders him to wait outside in the road,

and brings him a bag containing the small sum of twelve hundred francs, which Vauthier delivers to the

At Leveille's request, Vauthier returns to Bourget, who this time sends for his nephews. The elder Chaussard

takes Vauthier to the wood, shows him a tree, and there they find a bag of one thousand francs buried in the

earth. Leveille, Hiley, and Vauthier make other trips, obtaining only trifling sums compared with the large

The woman Lechantre receives these sums at Mortagne; and, on receipt of a letter from her daughter,

This is not the moment to examine as to whether the woman Lechantre had any anterior knowledge of the

It suffices here to note that this woman left Mortagne to go to SaintSavin the evening before the crime; that

after the crime she met her daughter on the highroad, and they both returned to Mortagne; that on the

following day Leveille, informed by Hiley of the success of the plot, goes from Alencon to Mortagne, and

there visits the two women; later he persuades them to deposit the sums obtained with such difficulty from

the Chaussards and Bourget in a house in Alencon, of which we shall speak presently,that of the Sieur

The woman Lechantre writes to the bailiff at SaintSavin to come and drive her and her daughter by the

The funds now in their possession amount to twenty thousand francs; these the girl Godard puts into the

The notary Leveille had given exact instructions. The two women reach Alencon and stop at the house of a

confederate, one Louis Chargegrain, in the Littray district. Despite all the precautions of the notary, who

came there to meet the women, witnesses were at hand who saw the portmanteaux and bags containing the

At the moment when Courceuil and Hiley, disguised as women, were consulting in the square at Alencon

with the Sieur Pannier (treasurer of the rebels since 1794, and devoted to Rifoel) as to the best means of

conveying to Rifoel the sum he asked for, the woman Lechantre became alarmed on hearing at the inn where

she stopped of the suspicions and arrests already made. She fled during the night, taking her daughter with

her through the byways and crossroads to SaintSavin, in order to take refuge, if necessary, in certain

hidingplaces prepared at the chateau de SaintSavin. Courceuil, Boislaurier, and his relation Dubut,

clandestinely changed two thousand francs in silver money for gold, and fled to Brittany and England.

On arriving at SaintSavin, the women Lechantre and Bryond heard of the arrest of Bourget, that of the

The magistrates and the gendarmerie struck such sure blows that it was thought advisable to place the woman

Bryond beyond the reach of human justice; for she appears to have been an object of great devotion on the

part of these criminals, who were captivated by her. She left SaintSavin, and was hidden at first in Alencon,

where her followers deliberated, and finally placed her in the cellar of Pannier's house.

After the arrest of Bourget and his wife, the Chaussards refuse to give up any more of the money, declaring

themselves betrayed. This unexpected refusal was given at a moment when an urgent want of money was felt

among the accomplices, if only for the purposes of escape. Rifoel was always clamorous for money. Hiley,

Two gendarmes, detailed to discover the woman Bryond, succeeded in tracking her to Pannier's. There a

discussion is held; and these men, unworthy of the trust reposed in them, instead of arresting the woman

Bryond, succumb to her seductions. These unworthy soldiers, named Ratel and Mallet, showed this woman

the utmost interest and offered to take her to the Chaussards and force them to make restitution.

The woman Bryond starts on horseback, disguised as a man, accompanied by Ratel, Mallet, and the girl

Godard. She makes the journey by night. She has a conference alone with one of the brothers Chaussard, an

excited conference. She is armed with a pistol, and threatens to blow out the brains of her accomplice if he

refuses the money. Then he goes with her into the forest, and they return with a heavy bag of coin. In the bag

are copper coins and twelvesous silver pieces to the amount of fifteen hundred francs.

When the woman Bryond returns to Alencon the accomplices propose to go in a body to the Chaussards'

When Pannier hears of this failure he is furious. He threatens. The woman Bryond, though threatening him in

Mallet, pitying the woman Bryond's position, offers her an asylum. Then Mallet and Ratel, accompanied by

Hiley and Cibot, go at night to the brothers Chaussard; this time they find these brothers have left the place

This was the last effort of the accomplices to recover the proceeds of the robbery.

It now becomes necessary to show the exact part taken by each of the actors in this crime.

Dubut, Boislaurier, Herbomez, Courceuil, and Hiley were the ringleaders. Some deliberated and planned,

Boislaurier, Dubut, and Courceuil, all three fugitives from justice and outlawed, are addicted to rebellion,

fomenters of trouble, implacable enemies of Napoleon the Great, his victories, his dynasty, and his

The guilt of the seven instruments of the crime, namely, Cibot, Lisieux, Grenier, Bruce, Horeau, Cabot, and

Minard, is evident; it appears from the confessions of those of them who are now in the hands of justice;

The conduct of Rousseau, who drove the coach, marks him as an accomplice. His slow method of driving, his

haste at the entrance of the wood, his persistent declaration that his head was covered, whereas the passengers

testify that the leader of the brigands told him to take the handkerchief off his head and recognize them; all

As for the woman Bryond and the notary Leveille, could any cooperation be more connected, more

continuous than theirs? They repeatedly furnished means for the crime; they were privy to it, and they abetted

it. Leveille travelled constantly. The woman Bryond invented scheme after scheme; she risked all, even her

life, to recover the plunder. She lent her house, her carriage; her hand is seen in the plot from the beginning;

she did not dissuade the chief leader of all, Rifoel, since executed, although through her guilty influence upon

him she might have done so. She made her waitingwoman, the girl Godard, an accomplice. As for Leveille,

he took an active part in the actual perpetration of the crime by seeking the axe the brigands asked for.

The woman Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, Pannier, the woman Lechantre, Mallet and Ratel, all

participated in the crime in their several degrees, as did the innkeepers Melin, Binet, Laraviniere, and

Bourget has died during the investigation, after making a confession which removes all doubt as to the part

played by Vauthier and the woman Bryond; if he attempted to extenuate that of his wife and his nephews

The Chaussards knowingly fed and lodged the brigands, they saw them armed, they witnessed all their

arrangements and knew the object of them; and lastly, they received the plunder, which they hid, and as it

Pannier, the former treasurer of the rebels, concealed the woman Bryond in his house; he is one of the most

dangerous accomplices of this crime, which he knew from its inception. In him certain mysterious relations

which are still obscure took their rise; the authorities now have these matters under investigation. Pannier was

the right hand of Rifoel, the depositary of the secrets of the counterrevolutionary party of the West; he

regretted that Rifoel introduced women into the plot and confided in them; it was he who received the stolen

As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it deserves the severest penalty of the law. They

betrayed their duty. One of them, foreseeing his fate, committed suicide, but not until he had made important

revelations. The other, Mallet, denies nothing, his tacit admissions preclude all doubt, especially as to the

The woman Lechantre, in spite of her constant denials, was privy to all. The hypocrisy of this woman, who

attempts to shelter her assumed innocence under the mask of a false piety, has certain antecedents which

prove her decision of character and her intrepidity in extreme cases. She alleges that she was misled by her

daughter, and believed that the plundered money belonged to the Sieur Bryond,a common excuse! If the

Sieur Bryond had possessed any property, he would not have left the department on account of his debts. The

woman Lechantre claims that she did not suspect a shameful theft, because she saw the proceedings approved

by her ally, Boislaurier. But how does she explain the presence of Rifoel (already executed) at SaintSavin;

the journeys to and fro; the relations of that young man with her daughter; the stay of the brigands at

SaintSavin, where they were served by her daughter and the girl Godard? She alleges sleep; declares it to be

her practice to go to bed at seven in the evening; and has no answer to make when the magistrate points out to

her that if she rises, as she says she does, at dawn, she must have seen some signs of the plot, of the sojourn

of so many persons, and of the nocturnal goings and comings of her daughter. To this she replies that she was

occupied in prayer. This woman is a mass of hypocrisy. Lastly, her journey on the day of the crime, the care

she takes to carry her daughter to Mortagne, her conduct about the money, her precipitate flight when all is

discovered, the pains she is at to conceal herself, even the circumstances of her arrest, all go to prove a

longexisting complicity. She has not acted like a mother who desires to save her daughter and withdraw her

from danger, but like a trembling accomplice. And her complicity is not that of a misguided tenderness; it is

the fruit of party spirit, the inspiration of a wellknown hatred against the government of His Imperial and

Royal Majesty. Misguided maternal tenderness, if that could be fairly alleged in her defence, would not,

however, excuse it; and we must not forget that consentment, longstanding and premeditated, is the surest

Thus all the elements of the crime and the persons committing it are fully brought to light.

We see the madness of faction combining with pillage and greed; we see assassination advised by party spirit,

under whose aegis these criminals attempt to justify themselves for the basest crimes. The leaders give the

signal for the pillage of the public money, which money is to be used for their ulterior crimes; vile

stipendiaries do this work for a paltry price, not recoiling from murder; then the fomenters of rebellion, not

less guilty because their own hands have neither robbed nor murdered, divide the booty and dispose of it.

What community can tolerate such outrages? The law itself is scarcely rigorous enough to duly punish them.

It is upon the above facts that this Court of Criminal and Special Justice is called upon to decide whether the

prisoners Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, Melin, Binet, Laraviniere, Rousseau, the

woman Bryond, Leveille, the woman Bourget, Vauthier, Chaussard the elder, Pannier, the widow Lechantre,

Mallet, all herein named and described, and arraigned before this court; also Boislaurier, Dubut, Courceuil,

Bruce, the younger Chaussard, Chargegrain, and the girl Godard,these latter being absent and fugitives

This legal paper, much shorter and more imperative than such indictments are these days, when they are far

more detailed and more precise, especially as to the antecedent life of accused persons, affected Godefroid

deeply. The dryness of the statement in which the official pen narrated in red ink the principal details of the

affair stirred his imagination. Concise, abbreviated narratives are to some minds texts into the hidden

In the middle of the night, aided by the silence, by the darkness, by the terrible relation intimated by the

worthy Alain between the facts of that document and Madame de la Chanterie, Godefroid applied all the

Evidently the name Lechantre stood for la Chanterie; in all probably the aristocracy of the name was

Godefroid saw, in imagination, the landscape and the scenes where this drama had taken place. The forms

and faces of the accomplices passed before his eyes. He pictured to himself not "one Rifoel" but a Chevalier

du Vissard, a young man something like the Fergus of Walter Scott, a French Jacobite. He developed the

romance of an ardent young girl grossly deceived by an infamous husband (a style of romance then much the

fashion); loving the young and gallant leader of a rebellion against the Empire; giving herself, body and soul,

like another Diana Vernon, to the conspiracy, and then, once launched on that fatal incline, unable to stop

The young man saw in his own mind a whole world, and he peopled it. He wandered in the shade of those

Norman groves; he saw the Breton hero and Madame Bryond among the gorse and shrubbery; he inhabited

the old chateau of SaintSavin; he shared in the diverse acts of all those many personages, picturing to

himself the notary, the merchant, and those bold Chouans. His mind conceived the state of that wild country

where lingered still the memory of the Comtes de Bauvan, de Longuy, the exploits of MarcheaTerre, the

massacre at La Vivetiere, the death of the Marquis de Montauranof whose prowess Madame de la

This sort of vision of things, of men, of places was rapid. When he remembered that this drama must relate to

the dignified, noble, deeply religious old woman whose virtue was acting upon him so powerfully as to be

upon the point of metamorphosing him, Godefroid was seized with a sort of terror, and turned hastily to the

Summary on behalf of Madame Henriette Bryond des ToursMinieres, nee Lechantre de la Chanterie.

We are condemned and guilty; but if ever the Sovereign had reason to exercise his right of clemency it is

From a prison cell, with the scaffold before her, this woman will tell the truth.

The trial before the Criminal Court of Alencon had, as in all cases where there are many accused persons in a

conspiracy inspired by partyspirit, certain portions which were seriously obscure.

The Chancellor of His Imperial and Royal Majesty knows now the truth about the mysterious personage

named Le Marchand, whose presence in the department of the Orne was not denied by the government during

the trial, but whom the prosecution did not think proper to call as witness, and whom the defence had neither

That personage is, as the prosecuting officer, the police of Paris, and the Chancellor of His Imperial and

Royal Majesty well know, the Sieur BernardPolydor Bryond des ToursMinieres, the correspondent, since

1794, of the Comte de Lille,known elsewhere as the Baron des ToursMinieres, and on records of the

He is notorious. His youth and name were degraded by vices so imperative, an immorality so profound,

conduct so criminal, that his infamous life must have ended on the scaffold if he had not possessed the ability

to play a double part, as indicated by his names. Hereafter, as his passions rule him more and more, he will

end by falling to the depths of infamy in spite of his incontestable ability and a remarkable mind.

[Well, falling to the ground from the roof of a house, at any rate, courtesy of Collin in Scenes.JB.]

When the Comte de Lille became aware of this man's character he no longer permitted him to take part in the

royalist councils or to handle the money sent to France; he thus lost the resources derived from these masters,

His traitorous connection with the intrigues of England and the Comte de Lille, won him the confidence of

the old families attached to the cause now vanquished by the genius of our immortal Emperor. He there met

one of the former leaders of the rebellion, with whom at the time of the expedition to Quberon, and later, at

the time of the last uprising of the Chouans, he had held certain relations as an envoy from England. He

encouraged the schemes of this young agitator, Rifoel, who has since paid with his life on the scaffold for his

plots against the State. Through him Bryond was able to penetrate once more into the secrets of that party

which has misunderstood both the glory of H.M. the Emperor Napoleon I. and the true interests of the nation

At the age of thirtyfive, this man, then known under his true name of des ToursMinieres, affecting a

sincere piety, professing the utmost devotion to the interests of the Comte de Lille and a reverence for the

memory of the insurgents who lost their lives at the West, disguising with great ability the secrets of his

exhausted youth, and powerfully protected by the silence of creditors, and by the spirit of caste which exists

among all country cidevants,this man, truly a whited sepulchre, was introduced, as possessing every

claim for consideration, to Madame Lechantre, who was supposed to be the possessor of a large fortune.

All parties conspired to promote a marriage between the young Henriette, only daughter of Madame

Lechantre, and this protege of the cidevants. Priests, nobles, creditors, each with a different interest, loyal in

some, selfish in others, blind for the most part, all united in furthering the union of Bernard Bryond des

The good sense of the notary who had charge of Madame Lechantre's affairs, and perhaps his distrust, were

the actual cause of the disaster of this young girl. The Sieur Chesnel, notary at Alencon, put the estate of

SaintSavin, the sole property of the bride, under the dower system, reserving the right of habitation and a

The creditors, who supposed, from Madame Lechantre's orderly and frugal way of living, that she had capital

laid by, were deceived in their expectations, and they then began suits which revealed the precarious financial

Serious differences now arose between the newly married pair, and the young wife had occasion to know the

depraved habits, the political and religious atheism andshall I say the word?the infamy of the man to

whom her life had been so fatally united. Bryond, forced to let his wife into the secret of the royalist plots,

The character of Rifoel, adventurous, brave, generous, exercised a charm on all who came in contact with

him, as was abundantly proved during his trials before three successive criminal courts.

The irresistible influence, the absolute empire he acquired over the mind of a young woman who saw herself

suddenly cast into the abyss of a fatal marriage, is but too visible in this catastrophe which now brings her a

suppliant to the foot of the Throne. But that which the Chancellor of His Imperial and Royal Majesty can

easily verify is the infamous encouragement given by Bryond to this intimacy. Far from fulfilling his duty as

guide and counsellor to a child whose poor deceived mother had trusted her to him, he took pleasure in

drawing closer still the bonds that united the young Henriette to the rebel leader.

The plan of this odious being, who takes pride in despising all things and considers nothing but the

satisfaction of his passions, admitting none of the restraints imposed by civil or religious morality, was as

We must first remark, however, that such plotting was familiar to a man who, ever since 1794 has played a

double part, who for eight years deceived the Comte de Lille and his adherents, and probably deceived at the

same time the police of the Republic and the Empire: such men belong only to those who pay them most.

Bryond pushed Rifoel to crime; he instigated the attacks of armed men upon the mailcoaches bearing the

moneys of the government, and the levying of a heavy tribute from the purchasers of the National domain; a

tax he enforced by means of tortures invented by him which carried terror through five departments. He then

demanded that a sum of three hundred thousand francs derived from these plunderings be paid to him for the

When he met with resistance on the part of his wife and Rifoel, and saw the contempt his proposal inspired in

upright minds who were acting only from party spirit, he determined to bring them both under the rigor of the

He disappeared, and returned to Paris, taking with him all information as to the then condition of the

The brothers Chaussard and Vauthier were, as the chancellor knows, Bryond's correspondents.

As soon as the attack was made on the diligence from Caen, Bryond returned secretly and in disguise, under

the name of Le Marchand. He put himself into secret communication with the prefect and the magistrates.

What was the result? Never was any conspiracy, in which a great number of persons took part, so rapidly

discovered and dealt with. Within six days after the committal of the crime all the guilty persons were

followed and watched with an intelligence which showed the most accurate knowledge of the plans, and of

the individuals concerned in them. The immediate arrest, trial, and execution of Rifoel and his accomplices

are the proof of this. We repeat, the chancellor knows even more than we do on this subject.

If ever a condemned person had a right to appeal to the Sovereign's mercy it is Henriette Lechantre.

Though led astray by love, by ideas of rebellion which she sucked in with the milk that fed her, she is, most

certainly, inexcusable in the eyes of the law; but in the eyes of the most magnanimous of emperors, will not

her misfortunes, the infamous betrayal of her husband, and a rash enthusiasm plead for her?

[Hopefully not. What a ridiculous case for the defence! Would Rumpole of the Bailey speak like this?JB.]

The greatest of all captains, the immortal genius which pardoned the Prince of Hatzfeldt and is able to divine

the reasons of the heart, will he not admit the fatal power of love, invincible in youth, which extenuates this

Twentytwo heads have fallen under the blade of the law; only one of the guilty persons is now left, and she

is a young woman, a minor, not twenty years of age. Will not the Emperor Napoleon the Great grant her life,

Her defender, Bordin, Barrister of the Lower Court of the Department of the Seine.

This dreadful drama disturbed the little sleep that Godefroid took. He dreamed of that penalty of death such

as the physician Guillotin has made it with a philanthropic object. Through the hot vapors of a nightmare he

saw a young woman, beautiful, enthusiastic, enduring the last preparations, drawn in that fatal tumbril,

Eager to know the whole, Godefroid rose at dawn, dressed, and paced his room; then stood mechanically at

his window gazing at the sky, while his thoughts reconstructed this drama in many volumes. Ever, on that

darksome background of Chouans, peasants, country gentlemen, rebel leaders, spies, and officers of justice,

he saw the vivid figures of the mother and the daughter detach themselves; the daughter misleading the

mother; the daughter victim of a monster; victim, too, of her passion for one of those bold men whom, later,

we have glorified as heroes, and to whom even Godefroid's imagination lent a likeness to the Charettes and

the Georges Cadoudals,those giants of the struggle between the Republic and the Monarchy.

As soon as Godefroid heard the goodman Alain stirring in the room above him, he went there; but he had no

sooner opened the door than he closed it and went back to his own apartment. The old man, kneeling by his

chair, was saying his morning prayer. The sight of that whitened head, bowed in an attitude of humble

reverence, reminded Godefroid of his own forgotten duties, and he prayed fervently.

"I expected you," said the kind old man, when Godefroid entered his room some fifteen minutes later. "I got

"Was Madame's daughter!" replied Monsieur Alain. "Madame's name is Lechantre de la Chanterie. Under the

Empire none of the nobiliary titles were allowed, nor any of the names added to the patronymic or original

names. Therefore, the Baronne des ToursMinieres was called Madame Bryond. The Marquis d'Esgrignon

took his name of Carol (citizen Carol); later he was called the Sieur Carol. The Troisvilles became the Sieurs

"Alas, no!" replied Alain. "The unfortunate little woman, not twenty one years old, perished on the scaffold.

After reading Bordin's appeal, the Emperor answered very much in these terms: 'Why be so bitter against the

spy? A spy is no longer a man; he ought not to have feelings; he is a wheel of the machinery; Bryond did his

duty. If instruments of that kind were not what they are,steel bars,and intelligent only in the service of

the power employing them, government would not be possible. The sentences of criminal courts must be

carried out, or the judges would cease to have confidence in themselves or in me. Besides, the women of the

West must be taught not to meddle in plots. It is precisely in the case of a woman that justice should not be

interfered with. There is no excuse possible for an attack on power?' This was the substance of what the

Emperor said, as Bordin repeated it to me. Learning a little later that France and Russia were about to

measure swords against each other, and that the Emperor was to go two thousand miles from Paris to attack a

vast and desert country, Bordin understood the secret reason of the Emperor's harshness. To insure

tranquillity at the West, now full of refractories, Napoleon believed it necessary to inspire terror. Bordin

"Madame de la Chanterie was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment," replied Alain. "As she was already

transferred to Bicetre, near Rouen, to undergo her punishment, nothing was attempted on her behalf until

every effort had been made to save Henriette, who had grown dearer than ever to her mother during this time

of anxiety. Indeed, if it had not been for Bordin's assurance that he could obtain Henriette's pardon, it is

doubtful if Madame could have survived the shock of the sentence. When the appeal failed, they deceived the

poor mother. She saw her daughter once after the execution of the other prisoners, not knowing that Madame

Bryond's respite was due to a false declaration of pregnancy, made to gain time for the appeal."

"No, my dear child, there are things that no one can imagine. Madame thought her daughter living for a long

"When Madame des ToursMinieres learned from Bordin that her appeal was rejected and that nothing could

save her, that sublime little woman had the courage to write twenty letters, dating them month by month after

the time of her execution, so as to make her poor mother in her prison believe she was alive. In those letters

she told of a gradual illness which would end in death. They covered a period of two years. Madame de la

Chanterie was therefore prepared for the news of her daughter's death, but she thought it a natural one. She

did not know until 1814 that Henriette had died on the scaffold. For two years Madame was herded among

the most depraved of her sex, but thanks to the urgency of the Champignelles and the Beauseants she was,

after the second year, placed in a cell by herself, where she lived like a cloistered nun."

"The notary Leveille, Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, and Mallet were condemned

to death, and executed the same day. Pannier, condemned to hard labor for twenty years, was branded and

sent to the galleys. The Chaussards and Vauthier received the same sentence, but were pardoned by the

Emperor. Melin, Laraviniere and Binet, were condemned to five years' imprisonment. The woman Bourget to

twenty years' imprisonment. Chargegrain and Rousseau were acquitted. Those who escaped were all

condemned to death, except the girl Godard, who was no other, as you have probably guessed, than our poor

"Oh! you don't know Manon yet," replied the kind old Alain. "That devoted creature, condemned to twelve

years' imprisonment, gave herself up that she might take care of Madame de la Chanterie, and wait upon her.

Our dear vicar was the priest at Mortagne who gave the last sacraments to the Baronne des ToursMinieres;

he had the courage to go with her to the scaffold, and to him she gave her farewell kiss. That courageous,

noble priest had also accompanied the Chevalier du Vissard. Our dear Abbe de Veze has therefore known all

"Alas! yes," said Alain. "He received from Amedee du Vissard a miniature of Madame des ToursMinieres,

the only portrait of her that exists; therefore, the abbe became almost sacred in Madame de la Chanterie's

"Why, at the restoration of Louis XVIII., in 1814. The Marquis du Vissard, eldest brother of the Chevalier,

was created peer of France and loaded with honors by the king. The brother of Monsieur d'Herbomez was

made a count and receivergeneral. The poor banker Pannier died of grief at the galleys. Boislaurier died

without children, a lieutenant general and governor of a royal chateau. Messieurs de Champignelles, de

Beauseant, the Duc de Verneuil, and the Keeper of the Seals presented Madame de la Chanterie to the king.

'You have suffered greatly for me, madame la baronne; you have every right to my favor and gratitude,' he

said to her. 'Sire,' she replied, 'your Majesty has so many sorrows to console that I do not wish that mine,

which is inconsolable, should be a burden upon you. To live forgotten, to mourn my daughter, and do some

good, that is my life. If anything could soften my grief, it is the kindness of my king, it is the pleasure of

"He restored two hundred thousand francs in money to Madame de la Chanterie, for the estate of SaintSavin

had been sold to pay the costs of the trial. In the decree of pardon issued for Madame la baronne and her

servant the king expressed regret for the suffering borne in his cause, adding that 'the zeal of his servants had

gone too far in its methods of execution.' Butand this is a horrible thing; it will serve to show you a curious

trait in the character of that monarchhe employed Bryond in his detective police throughout his reign."

"No; the wretch, as you justly call him, who concealed his real name under that of Contenson, died about the

close of the year 1829 or the beginning of 1830. In trying to arrest a criminal who escaped over a roof, he fell

into the street. Louis XVIII. shared Napoleon's ideas as to spies and police. Madame de la Chanterie is a

saint; she prays constantly for the soul of that man and has two masses said yearly for him. As I have already

told you, Madame de la Chanterie knew nothing of the dangers her daughter was incurring until the day when

the money was carried to Alencon; nevertheless she was unable to establish her innocence, although defended

by one of the greatest lawyers of that time. The president, du Ronceret, and the vicepresident, Blondet, of

the court of Alencon did their best to save our poor lady. But the influence of the councillor of the Imperial

Court who presided at her trial before the Criminal and Special Court, the famous Mergi, and that of Bourlac

the attorneygeneral was such over the other judges that they obtained her condemnation. Both Bourlac and

Mergi showed extraordinary bitterness against mother and daughter; they called the Baronne des

ToursMinieres 'the woman Bryond,' and Madame 'the woman Lechantre.' The names of accused persons in

those days were all brought to one republican level, and were sometimes unrecognizable. The trial had

several very extraordinary features, which I cannot now recall; one piece of audacity remains in my memory

which will serve to show you what sort of men those Chouans were. The crowd which assembled to hear the

trial was immense; it even filled the corridors and the square before the courthouse. One morning, after the

opening of the courtroom and before the arrival of the judges, PilleMiche, a famous Chouan, sprang over

the balustrade into the middle of the crowd, elbowing right and left, 'charging like a wild boar,' as Bordin told

me, through the frightened people. The guards and the gendarmes dashed after him and caught him just as he

reached the square; after that the guards were doubled. A picket of gendarmerie was stationed in the square,

for they feared there were Chouans on the ground ready to rescue the prisoners. As it was, three persons were

crushed to death on this occasion. It was afterwards discovered that Contenson (neither my friend Bordin nor

I could ever bring ourselves to call him the Baron des ToursMinieres, nor Bryond which is the name of an

old family),it was, I say, discovered that this wretch Contenson had obtained sixty thousand francs of the

stolen money from the Chaussards; he gave ten thousand to the younger Chaussard, whom he took with him

into the detective police and innoculated with his vices; his other accomplices got nothing from him. Madame

de la Chanterie invested the money restored to her by the king in the public Funds, and bought this house to

please her uncle, Monsieur de Boisfrelon, who gave her the money for the purpose, and died in the rooms you

now occupy. This tranquil neighborhood is near the archbishop's palace, where our dear abbe has duties with

the cardinal. That was one of the chief reasons why Madame agreed to her uncle's wish. Here, in this cloistral

life, the fearful misfortunes which overwhelmed her for twentysix years have been brought to a close. Now

you can understand the majesty, the grandeur of this victimaugust, I venture to call her."

"Yes," said Godefroid, "the imprint of all the blows she has received remains and gives her something, I can

"Every wound, every fresh blow, has increased her patience, her resignation," continued Alain; "but if you

knew her as we know her you would see how keen is her sensibility, how active the inexhaustible tenderness

of her heart, and you would almost stand in awe of the tears she had shed, and the fervent prayers she had

made to God. Ah! it was necessary to have known, as she did, a brief period of happiness to bear up as she

has done under such misfortunes. Here is a tender heart, a gentle soul in a steel body hardened by privations,

"There are days when I ask myself what is the meaning of a life like hers? Can it be that God reserves such

trials, such cruel tests, for those of his creatures who are to sit on the morrow of their death at his right hand?"

said the good Alain, quite unconscious that he was artlessly expressing the whole doctrine of Swedenborg on

"And you tell me," said Godefroid, "that in prison Madame de la Chanterie was put with"

"Madame was sublime in her prison," said Alain. "For three whole years she realized the story of the Vicar of

Wakefield, and was able to convert many of the worst women about her. During her imprisonment she

observed the habits and customs of these women, and was seized with that great pity for the sorrows of the

people which has since filled her soul and made her the angel of Parisian charity. In that dreadful Bicetre of

Rouen, she conceived the plan to the realization of which we are now devoted. It was, she has often told us, a

delightful dream, an angelic inspiration in the midst of hell; though she never thought she should realize it.

When, in 1819, peace and quietude seemed really to return to Paris, her dream came back to her. Madame la

Duchesse d'Angouleme, afterwards the dauphine, the Duchesse de Berry, the archbishop, later the chancellor,

and several pious persons contributed liberally the first necessary sums. These funds have been increased by

the addition of our own available property, from which we take only enough for our actual needs."

"We are the ministers of a Christian idea; we belong body and soul to its work, the spirit of which, the

founder of which, is the Baronne de la Chanterie, whom you hear us so respectfully call 'Madame.'"

"Ah! let me belong to you!" cried Godefroid, stretching out his hands to the kind old man.

"Now you understand why there are some subjects of conversation which are never mentioned here, nor even

alluded to. You can now see the obligations of delicacy that all who live in this house contract towards one

who seems to us a saint. You comprehenddo you not?the influence of a woman made sacred by such

sorrows, who knows so many things, to whom anguish has said its utmost word; who from each adversity has

drawn instruction, in whom all virtues have the double strength of cruel trial and of constant practice; whose

soul is spotless and without reproach, whose motherhood knew only grief, whose married love knew only

bitterness; on whom life smiled for a brief time only, but for whom heaven reserves a palm, the reward of

resignation and of lovingkindness under sorrow. Ah! does she not even triumph over Job in never

murmuring? Can you wonder that her words are so powerful, her old age so young, her soul so

communicative, her glance so convincing? She has obtained extraordinary powers in dealing with sufferers,

"She is the living image of Charity!" cried Godefroid, fervently. "Can I ever be one of you?"

"You must first endure the tests, and above all BELIEVE!" said the old man, gently. "So long as you have no

faith, so long as you have not absorbed into your heart and mind the divine meaning of Saint Paul's epistle

Like evil, good is contagious. Therefore when Madame de la Chanterie's lodger had lived in that old and

silent house for some months after the worthy Alain's last confidence, which gave him the deepest respect for

the religious lives of those among whom his was cast, he experienced that wellbeing of the soul which

comes of a regulated existence, gentle customs, and harmony of nature in those who surround us. At the end

of four months, during which time Godefroid heard neither a loud voice nor an argument, he could not

remember that he had ever been, if not as happy, at least as tranquil and contented. He now judged soundly of

the world, seeing it from afar. At last, the desire he had felt for months to be a sharer in the work of these

mysterious persons became a passion. Without being great philosophers we can all understand the force

Thus it happened that one daya day made solemn by the power of the spirit within himGodefroid again

went up to see the good old Alain, him whom Madame de la Chanterie called her "lamb," the member of the

community who seemed to Godefroid the least imposing, the most approachable member of the fraternity,

intending to obtain from him some definite light on the conditions of the sacred work to which these brothers

of God were dedicated. The allusions made to a period of trial seemed to imply an initiation, which he was

now desirous of receiving. His curiosity had not been satisfied by what the venerable old man had already

told him as to the causes which led to the work of Madame de la Chanterie; he wanted to know more.

For the third time Godefroid entered Monsieur Alain's room, just as the old man was beginning his evening

reading of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ." This time the kindly soul did not restrain a smile when he saw the

"Why do you come to me, my dear boy; why not go to Madame? I am the most ignorant, the most imperfect,

the least spiritual of our number. For the last three days," he added, with a shrewd little glance, "Madame and

"Ah!" replied the goodman, without evasion, "they see in you a rather artless desire to belong to our little

flock. But this sentiment is not yet an ardent vocation. Yes," he continued, replying to a gesture of

Godefroid's, "you have more curiosity than fervor. You are not yet so detached from your old ideas that you

do not look forward to something adventurous, romantic, as they say, in the incidents of our life."

"You see a likeness between our occupations and those of the caliphs of the 'Arabian Nights;' and you are

thinking about the satisfaction you will have in playing the part of the good genii in the tales of benevolence

you are inventing. Ah, my dear boy! that shamefaced laugh of yours proves to me that we were quite right

in that conjecture. How do you expect to conceal any feeling from persons whose business it is to divine the

most hidden motion of souls, the tricks of poverty, the calculations of indigence,honest spies, the police of

the good God; old judges, whose code contains nothing but absolutions; doctors of suffering, whose only

remedy is oftentimes the wise application of money? But, you see, my child, we don't wish to quarrel with the

motives which bring us a neophyte, provided he will really stay and become a brother of the order. We shall

judge you by your work. There are two kinds of curiosity,that of good and that of evil; just at this moment

you have that of good. If you should work in our vineyard, the juice of our grapes will make you perpetually

thirsty for the divine fruit. The initiation is, as in that of all natural knowledge, easy in appearance, difficult in

reality. Benevolence is like poesy; nothing is easier than to catch the appearance of it. But here, as in

Parnassus, nothing contents us but perfection. To become one to us, you must acquire a great knowledge of

life. And what a life,good God! Parisian life, which defies the sagacity of the minister of police and all his

agents! We have to circumvent the perpetual conspiracy of Evil, master it in all its forms, while it changes so

often as to seem infinite. Charity in Paris must know as much as vice, just as a policeman must know all the

tricks of thieves. We must each be frank and each distrustful; we must have quick perception and a sure and

rapid judgment. And then, my child, we are old and getting older; but we are so content with the results we

have now obtained, that we do not want to die without leaving successors in the work. If you persist in your

desire, you will be our first pupil, and all the dearer to us on that account. There is no risk for us, because God

brought you to us. Yours is a good nature soured; since you have been here the evil leaven has weakened.

The divine nature of Madame has acted upon yours. Yesterday we took counsel together; and inasmuch as I

have your confidence, my good brothers resolved to give me to you as guardian and teacher. Does that please

"No, my child, it is not I who speak well; it is things that are eloquent. We can be sure of being great, even

sublime, in obeying God, in imitating Jesus Christ,imitating him, I mean, as much as men are able to do

"This moment, then, decides my life!" cried Godefroid. "I feel within me the fervor of a neophyte; I wish to

"That is the secret of remaining in God," replied Alain. "Have you studied our motto,Transire

benefaciendo? Transire means to go beyond this world, leaving benefits on our way."

"That is well; it is a trifling action, but it counts for much in my eyes. And now I have your first affair, your

first duel with misery, prepared for you; I'll put your foot in the stirrup. We are about to part. Yes, I myself

am detached from the convent, to live for a time in the crater of a volcano. I am to be a clerk in a great

manufactory, where the workmen are infected with communistic doctrines, and dream of social destruction,

the abolishment of masters,not knowing that that would be the death of industry, of commerce, of

manufactures. I shall stay there goodness knows how long,perhaps a year,keeping the books and paying

the wages. This will give me an entrance into a hundred or a hundred and twenty homes of workingmen,

misled, no doubt, by poverty, even before the pamphlets of the day misled them. But you and I can see each

other on Sundays and fetedays. We shall be in the same quarter; and if you come to the church of

SaintJacques du HautPas, you will find me there any day at halfpast seven, when I hear mass. If you meet

me elsewhere don't recognize me, unless you see me rub my hands like a man who is pleased at something.

That is one of our signs. We have a language of signs, like the deaf and dumb; you'll soon find out the

Godefroid made a gesture which the goodman Alain interpreted; for he laughed, and immediately went on to

"Now for your affair. We do not practise either the benevolence or the philanthropy that you know about,

which are really divided into several branches, all taken advantage of by sharpers in charity as a business. We

practise charity as our great and sublime Saint Paul defines it; for, my dear lad, we think that charity, and

charity alone, which is Love, can heal the wounds of Paris. In our eyes, misery, of whatever kind, poverty,

suffering, misfortune, grief, evil, no matter how produced, or in what social class they show themselves, have

equal rights. Whatever his opinions or beliefs, an unhappy man is, before all else, an unhappy man; and we

ought not to attempt to turn his face to our holy mother Church until we have saved him from despair or

hunger. Moreover, we ought to convert him to goodness more by example and by gentleness than by any

other means; and we believe that God will specially help us in this. All constraint is bad. Of the manifold

Parisian miseries, the most difficult to discover, and the bitterest, is that of worthy persons of the middle

classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear

Godefroid, are to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have intelligence and good hearts.

They return to us, sometimes with usury, the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long

run for the losses we occasionally incur through impostors, shiftless creatures, or those whom misfortunes

have rendered stupid. Through such persons we often obtain invaluable help in our investigations. Our work

has now become so vast, its details are so multifarious, that we no longer suffice of ourselves to carry it on.

So, for the last year we have a physician of our own in every arrondissement in Paris. Each of us takes

general charge of four arrondissements. We pay each physician three thousand francs a year to take care of

our poor. His time belongs to us in the first instance, but we do not prevent him from attending other sick

persons if he can. Would you believe that for many months we were unable to find twelve really trustworthy,

valuable men, in spite of all our own efforts and those of our friends? We could not employ any but men of

absolute discreetness, pure lives, sound knowledge, experience, active men, and lovers of doing good. Now,

although there are in Paris some ten thousand individuals, more or less, who would gladly do the work, we

"Our Saviour had difficulty in gathering his apostles, and even then a traitor and an unbeliever got among

"However, within the last month all our arrondissements are provided with a Visitorthat is the name we

give to our physicians. At the same time the business is increasing, and we have all redoubled our activity. If

I confide to you these secrets of our system, it is that you must know the physician, that is, the Visitor of the

arrondissement to which we are about to send you; from him, all original information about our cases comes.

This Visitor is named Berton, Doctor Berton; he lives in the rue d'Enfer. And now here are the facts: Doctor

Berton is attending a lady whose disease puzzles and defies science. That, of course, is not our concern, but

that of the Faculty. Our business is to discover the condition of the family of this patient; Doctor Berton

suspects that their poverty is frightful, and concealed with a pride and determination which demand our

utmost care. Until now, my son, I should have found time for this case, but the work I am undertaking obliges

me to find a helper in my four arrondissements, and you shall be that helper. This family lives in the rue

NotreDame des Champs, in a house at the corner of the boulevard du MontParnasse. You will find a room

to let in the same house, where you can live for a time so as to discover the truth about these persons. Be

sordid for yourself, but as for the money you may think needed for this case have no uneasiness. I will remit

you such sums as we may judge necessary after ourselves considering all the circumstances. But remember

that you must study the moral qualities of these unfortunates: their hearts, the honorableness of their feelings;

those are our guarantees. Miserly we may be for ourselves, and generous to those who suffer, but we must be

prudent and even calculating, for we are dealing with the money of the poor. So then, tomorrow morning

you can start; think over the power we put in your hands: the brothers are with you in heart."

"Ah!" cried Godefroid, "you have given me such a pleasure in the opportunity of doing good and making

"One more word, my child. I told you not to recognize me without the signal; the same rule applies to the

other gentlemen and to Madame, and even to the people you see about this house. We are forced to keep up

an absolute incognito in all we do; this is so necessary to our enterprises that we have made a rule about it.

We seek to be ignored, lost in this great Paris. Remember also, my dear Godefroid, the spirit of our order;

which is, never to appear as benefactors, to play an obscure part, that of intermediaries. We always present

ourselves as the agent of a pious, saintly person (in fact, we are working for God), so that none of those we

deal with may feel the obligation of gratitude towards any of us, or think we are wealthy persons. True,

sincere humility, not the false humility of those who seek thereby to be set in the light, must inspire you and

rule all your thoughts. You may indeed be glad when you succeed; but so long as you feel within you a

sentiment of vanity or of pride, you are not worthy to do the work of the order. We have known two perfect

men: one, who was one of our founders, Judge Popinot; the other is revealed by his works; he is a country

doctor whose name is written on the annals of his canton. That man, my dear Godefroid, is one of the greatest

men of our time; he brought a whole region out of wretchedness into prosperity, out of irreligion into

Christianity, out of barbarism into civilization.[*] The names of those two men are graven on our hearts and

we have taken them as our models. We should be happy indeed if we ourselves could some day acquire in

Paris the influence that country doctor had in his canton. But here, the sore is vast, beyond our strength at

present. May God preserve to us Madame, may he send us some young helpers like you, and perhaps we may

yet leave behind us an institution worthy of his divine religion. And now goodbye; your initiation

beginsAh! I chatter like a professor and forget the essential thing! Here is the address of that family," he

added, giving Godefroid a piece of paper; "I have added the number of Dr. Berton's house in the rue d'Enfer;

[I assume the "Little, Brown Co." is a reference to a publisher. I will remove this in the finished version of

the text. Elsewhere she has used a different method of indicating a reference to another work in La

Godefroid took the old man's hands and pressed them tenderly, wishing him goodnight, and assuring him he

The old man smiled, expressing no doubts; then he rose, to kneel in his accustomed place. Godefroid retired,

joyful in at last sharing the mysteries of that house and in having an occupation, which, feeling as he did then,

The next day at breakfast, Monsieur Alain's place was vacant, but no one remarked upon it; Godefroid made

no allusion to the cause of his absence, neither did any one question him as to the mission the old man had

entrusted to him; he thus took his first lesson in discreetness. Nevertheless, after breakfast, he did take

Madame de la Chanterie apart and told her that he should be absent for some days.

"That is good, my child," replied Madame de la Chanterie; "try to do honor to your godfather, who has

Godefroid bade adieu to the three remaining brethren, who made him an affectionate bow, by which they

ASSOCIATION, one of the greatest social forces, and that which made the Europe of the middleages, rests

on principles which, since 1792, no longer exist in France, where the Individual has now triumphed over the

State. Association requires, in the first place, a selfdevotion that is not understood in our day; also a

guileless faith which is contrary to the spirit of the nation, and lastly, a discipline against which men in these

days revolt and which the Catholic religion alone can enforce. The moment an association is formed among

us, each member, returning to his own home from an assembly where noble sentiments have been

proclaimed, thinks of making his own bed out of that collective devotion, that union of forces, and of milking

to his own profit the common cow, which, not being able to supply so many individual demands, dies

Who knows how many generous sentiments were blasted, how many fruitful germs may have perished, lost

to the nation through the infamous deceptions of the French Carbonari, the patriotic subscriptions to the

Champ d'Asile, and other political deceptions which ought to have been grand and noble dramas, and proved

to be the farces and the melodramas of police courts. It is the same with industrial association as it is with

political association. Love of self is substituted for the love of collective bodies. The corporations and the

Hanse leagues of the middleages, to which we shall some day return, are still impossible. Consequently, the

only societies which actually exist are those of religious bodies, against whom a heavy war is being made at

this moment; for the natural tendency of sick persons is to quarrel with remedies and often with physicians.

France ignores self abnegation. Therefore, no association can live except through religious sentiment; the

only sentiment that quells the rebellions of mind, the calculations of ambition, and greeds of all kinds. The

seekers of better worlds ignore the fact that ASSOCIATION has such worlds to offer.

As he walked through the streets Godefroid felt himself another man. Whoever could have looked into his

being would have admired the curious phenomenon of the communication of collective power. He was no

longer a mere man, he was a tenfold force, knowing himself the representative of persons whose united forces

upheld his actions and walked beside him. Bearing that power in his heart, he felt within him a plenitude of

life, a noble might, which uplifted him. It was, as he afterwards said, one of the finest moments of his whole

existence; he was conscious of a new sense, an omnipotence more sure than that of despots. Moral power is,

"To live for others," he thought, "to act with others, all as one, and act alone as all together, to have for leader

Charity, the noblest, the most living of those ideal figures Christianity has made for us, this is indeed to

live!Come, come, repress that petty joy, which father Alain laughed at. And yet, how singular it is that in

seeking to set myself aside from life I have found the power I have sought so long! Yes, the world of misery

Godefroid walked from the cloister of NotreDame to the avenue de l'Observatoire in such a state of

When he reached the rue NotreDame des Champs at the point where it joins the rue de l'Ouest he was

amazed to find (neither of these streets being paved at the time of which we write) great mudholes in that

fine open quarter. Persons walked on planks laid down beside the houses and along the marshy gardens, or on

narrow paths flanked on each side by stagnant water which sometimes turned them into rivulets.

By dint of searching he found the house he wanted, but he did not reach it without difficulty. It was evidently

an abandoned factory. The building was narrow and the side of it was a long wall with many windows and no

architectural decoration whatever. None of these windows, which were square, were on the lower floor,

Godefroid supposed that the proprietor had turned the building into a number of small tenements to make it

profitable, for a written placard above the door stated that there were "Several rooms to let." Godefroid rang,

but no one came. While he was waiting, a person who went by pointed out to him that the house had another

Godefroid followed this advice and saw at the farther end of a little garden which extended along the

boulevard a second door to the house. The garden, rather illkept, sloped downward, for there was enough

difference in level between the boulevard and the rue NotreDame des Champs to make it a sort of ditch.

Godefroid therefore walked along one of the paths, at the end of which he saw an old woman whose

On the woman's replying that she did, Godefroid inquired if the other lodgers were quiet persons; his

occupations, he said, were such that he needed silence and peace; he was a bachelor and would be glad to

"Monsieur has fallen on his feet in coming here, then," she said; "except on the Chaumiere days the

"No, monsieur, I don't; but I've got an old gentleman upstairs whose daughter seems to get her living by being

ill, and he says that; I only repeat it. The poor old man will be glad to know that monsieur likes quiet, for a

noisy neighbor, he thinks, would kill his daughter. On the second floor we have two writers; they don't come

in till midnight, and are off before eight in the morning. They say they are authors, but I don't know where or

While speaking, the portress was showing Godefroid up one of those horrible stairways of brick and wood so

ill put together that it is hard to tell whether the wood is trying to get rid of the bricks or the bricks are trying

to get away from the wood; the gaps between them were partly filled up by what was dust in summer and

mud in winter. The walls, of cracked and broken plaster, presented to the eye more inscriptions than the

Academy of Belleslettres has yet composed. The portress stopped on the first landing.

"Here, monsieur, are two rooms adjoining each other and every clean, which open opposite to those of

Monsieur Bernard; that's the old gentleman I told you of,quite a proper person. He is decorated; but it

seems he has had misfortunes, for he never wears his ribbon. They formerly had a servant from the provinces,

but they sent him away about three years ago; and now the young son of the lady does everything, housework

"Oh!" cried the Portress, "don't you be afraid; they won't say anything to you; they never speak to any one.

They came here after the Revolution of July, in 1830. I think they're provincial folk ruined by the change of

government; they are proud, I tell you! and dumb as fishes. For three years, monsieur, I declare they have not

let me do the smallest thing for them for fear they should have to pay for it. A hundred sous on New Year's

This gossip made Godefroid hope he should get some assistance out of the woman, who presently said, while

praising the healthfulness of the two rooms she offered him, that she was not a portress, but the confidential

"You may have confidence in me, monsieur, that you may! Madame Vauthier, it is well known, would rather

Madame Vauthier soon came to terms with Godefroid who would not take the rooms unless he could have

them by the single month and furnished. These miserable rooms of students and unlucky authors were rented

furnished or unfurnished as the case might be. The vast garret which extended over the whole building was

filled with such furniture. But Monsieur Bernard, she said, had furnished his own rooms.

In making Madame Vauthier talk, Godefroid discovered she had intended to keep boarders in the building,

but for the last five years had not obtained a single lodger of that description. She lived herself on the

groundfloor facing towards the boulevard; and looked after the whole house, by the help of a huge mastiff, a

stout servantgirl, and a lad who blacked the boots, took care of the rooms, and did the errands.

These two servants were, like herself, in keeping with the poverty of the house, that of the tenants, and the

wild and tangled look of the garden. Both were children abandoned by their parents to whom the widow gave

food for wages,and what food! The lad, whom Godefroid caught a glimpse of, wore a ragged blouse and

list slippers instead of shoes, and sabots when he went out. With his tousled head, looking like a sparrow

when it takes a bath, and his black hands, he went to measure wood at a woodyard on the boulevard as soon

as he had finished the morning work of the house; and after his day's labor (which ends in woodyards at

halfpast four in the afternoon) he returned to his domestic avocations. He went to the fountain of the

Observatoire for the water used in the house, which the widow supplied to the tenants, together with bundles

Nepomucene, such was the name of the widow Vauthier's slave, brought the daily journal to his mistress. In

summer the poor forsaken lad was a waiter in the wineshops at the barrier; and then his mistress dressed

As for the stout girl, she cooked under direction of the widow, and helped her in another department of

industry during the rest of the day; for Madame Vauthier had a business,she made list shoes, which were

Godefroid learned all these details in about an hour's time; for the widow took him everywhere, and showed

him the whole building, explaining its transformation into a dwelling. Until 1828 it had been a nursery for

silkworms, less for the silk than to obtain what they call the eggs. Eleven acres planted with mulberries on

the plain of Montrouge, and three acres on the rue de l'Ouest, afterwards built over, had supplied this singular

Just as the widow was explaining to Godefroid how Monsieur Barbet, having lent money to an Italian named

Fresconi, the manager of the business, could recover his money only by foreclosing a mortgage on the

building and seizing the three acres on the rue NotreDame des Champs, a tall, spare old man with

snowwhite hair appeared at the end of the street which leads into the square of the rue de l'Ouest.

"Ah! here he comes, just in time!" cried the Vauthier; "that's your neighbor Monsieur Bernard. Monsieur

Bernard!" she called out as soon as the old man was within hearing; "you won't be alone any longer; here is a

Monsieur Bernard turned his eyes on Godefroid with an apprehension it was easy to fathom; the look seemed

"Yes, monsieur," said Godefroid, honestly. "It is not a resort for the fortunate of this earth and it is the least

expensive place I can find in the quarter. Madame Vauthier does not pretend to lodge millionnaires. Adieu,

for the present, my good Madame Vauthier, and have everything ready for me at six o'clock this evening; I

Godefroid turned toward the square of the rue de l'Ouest, walking slowly, for the anxiety depicted on the face

of the tall old man made him think that he would follow him and come to an explanation. And, in fact, after

an instant's hesitation Monsieur Bernard turned round and retraced his steps so as to overtake Godefroid.

"The old villain! he'll prevent him from returning," thought Madame Vauthier; "that's the second time he has

played me the same trick. Patience! patience! five days hence he owes his rent, and if he doesn't pay sharp up

I'll turn him out. Monsieur Barbet is a kind of a tiger one mustn't offend, andBut I would like to know what

he's telling him. Felicite! Felicite, you great gawk! where are you?" cried the widow in her rasping, brutal

And Madame Vauthier, formerly cook to the publisher Barbet, one of the hardest lenders of money by the

week, slipped along behind her two tenants so as to be able to overtake Godefroid as soon as his conversation

[The term "lender by the week" was explained in The Lesser Bourgeoisie in relation to Cerizet. Oddly, just

looking it up, Barbet is mentioned as being higher in the scale of usury than Cerizet; there is a level between

Monsieur Bernard walked slowly, like a man who is undecided, or like a debtor seeking for excuses to

placate a creditor who has just left him with threats. Godefroid, though some distance in front, saw him while

pretending to look about and examine the locality. It was not, therefore, till they reached the middle of the

great alley of the garden of the Luxembourg that Monsieur Bernard came up to the young man.

"Pardon me, monsieur," said Monsieur Bernard, bowing to Godefroid, who returned his bow. "A thousand

pardons for stopping you without having the honor of your acquaintance; but is it really your intention to take

"Yes, yes," said the old man, interrupting Godefroid, with a gesture of authority. "I know that you may well

ask me by what right I meddle in your affairs and presume to question you. Hear me, monsieur; you are

young and I am old; I am older than my years, and they are sixty seven; people take me for eighty. Age and

misfortunes justify many things; but I will not make a plea of my whitened head; I wish to speak of yourself.

Do you know that this quarter in which you propose to live is deserted by eight o'clock at night, and the roads

are full of dangers, the least of which is robbery? Have you noticed those wide spaces not yet built upon,

these fields, these gardens? You may tell me that I live here; but, monsieur, I never go out after six o'clock.

You may also remind me of the two young men on the second floor, above the apartment you are going to

take. But, monsieur, those two poor men of letters are pursued by creditors. They are in hiding; they are away

in the daytime and only return at night; they have no reason to fear robbers or assassins; besides, they always

go together and are armed. I myself obtained permission from the prefecture of police that they should carry

[Yes, this would explain why there are no windows on the ground floor of Barbet's building. I would not like

to stay anywhere that was easily externally accessible in a city, but more because of drunks than anything

"Monsieur," said Godefroid, "I am not afraid of robbers, for the same reasons that make those gentlemen

invulnerable; and I despise life so heartily that if I were murdered by mistake I should bless the murderer!"

"I have, at the most, enough to get me bread to live on; and I have come to this place, monsieur, because of

its silent neighborhood. May I ask you what interest you have in driving me away?"

The old man hesitated; he saw Madame Vauthier close behind them. Godefroid, who examined him

attentively, was astonished at the degree of thinness to which grief, perhaps hunger, perhaps toil, had reduced

him. There were signs of all those causes upon that face, where the parched skin clung to the bones as if it

had been burned by the sun of Africa. The dome of the forehead, high and threatening, overshadowed a pair

of steelblue eyes,two cold, hard, sagacious, penetrating eyes, like those of savages, surrounded by a black

and wrinkled circle. The large nose, long and very thin, and the prominent chin, gave the old man a strong

resemblance to the wellknown mask popularly ascribed to Don Quixote; but a wicked Don Quixote, without

And yet the old man, in spite of this general aspect of severity, betrayed the weakness and timidity which

indigence imparts to all unfortunates. These two emotions seemed to have made crevices in that solidly

constructed face which the pickaxe of poverty was daily enlarging. The mouth was eloquent and grave; in

His clothing was entirely of black cloth, but cloth that was white at the seams. The coat, of an oldfashioned

cut, and the trousers, showed various clumsy darns. The buttons had evidently just been renewed. The coat,

buttoned to the chin, showed no linen; and the cravat, of a rusty black, hid the greater part of a false collar.

These clothes, worn for many years, smelt of poverty. And yet the lofty air of this mysterious old man, his

gait, the thought that dwelt on his brow and was manifest in his eyes, excluded the idea of pauperism. An

Monsieur Bernard seemed so absorbed that he might have been taken for a teacher employed in that quarter

of the city, or for some learned man plunged in exacting and tyrannical meditation. Godefroid, in any case,

would have felt a curiosity which his present mission of benevolence sharpened into powerful interest.

"Monsieur," continued the old man, "if I were sure that you are really seeking silence and seclusion, I should

say take those rooms near mine." He raised his voice so that Madame Vauthier, who was now passing them,

could hear him. "Take those rooms. I am a father, monsieur. I have only a daughter and a grandson to enable

me to bear the miseries of life. Now, my daughter needs silence and absolute tranquillity. All those persons

who, so far, have looked at the rooms you are now considering, have listened to the reasons and the entreaties

of a despairing father. It was indifferent to them whether they lived in one house or another of a quarter so

deserted that plenty of lodgings can be had for a low price. But I see in you a fixed determination, and I beg

you, monsieur, not to deceive me. Do you really desire a quiet life? If not, I shall be forced to move and go

If the man could have wept, the tears would have covered his cheeks while he spoke; as it was, they were, to

use an expression now become vulgar, "in his voice." He covered his forehead with his hand, which was

"What is your daughter's illness?" asked Godefroid, in a persuasive and sympathetic voice.

"A terrible disease to which physicians give various names, but it has, in truth, no name. My fortune is lost,"

he added, with one of those despairing gestures made only by the wretched. "The little money that I

had,for in 1830 I was cast from a high position,in fact, all that I possessed, was soon used by on my

daughter's illness; her mother, too, was ruined by it, and finally her husband. Today the pension I receive

from the government barely suffices for the actual necessities of my poor, dear, saintly child. The faculty of

tears has left me; I have suffered tortures. Monsieur, I must be granite not to have died. But no, God had kept

alive the father that the child might have a nurse, a providence. Her poor mother died of the strain. Ah! you

have come, young man, at a moment when the old tree that never yet has bent feels the axethe axe of

poverty, sharpened by sorrowat his roots. Yes, here am I, who never complain, talking to you of this

illness so as to prevent you from coming to the house; or, if you still persist, to implore you not to trouble our

"Her mind is sound; she is a saint," replied the old man. "You will presently think I am mad when I tell you

all. Monsieur, my only child, my daughter was born of a mother in excellent health. I never in my life loved

but one woman, the one I married. I married the daughter of one of the bravest colonels of the Imperial guard,

Tarlowski, a Pole, formerly on the staff of the Emperor. The functions that I exercised in my high position

demanded the utmost purity of life and morals; but I have never had room in my heart for many feelings, and

I faithfully loved my wife, who deserved such love. I am a father in like manner as I was a husband, and that

is telling you all in one word. My daughter never left her mother; no child has ever lived more chastely, more

truly a Christian life than my dear daughter. She was born more than pretty, she was born most beautiful; and

her husband, a young man of whose morals I was absolutely sure,he was the son of a friend of mine, the

judge of one of the Royal courts,did not in any way contribute to my daughter's illness."

Godefroid and Monsieur Bernard made an involuntary pause, and looked at each other.

"Marriage, as you know, sometimes changes a young woman greatly," resumed the old man. "The first

pregnancy passed well and produced a son, my grandson, who now lives with us, the last scion of two

families. The second pregnancy was accompanied by such extraordinary symptoms that the physicians, much

astonished, attributed them to the caprice of phenomena which sometimes manifest themselves in this state,

and are recorded by physicians in the annals of science. My daughter gave birth to a dead child; in fact, it was

twisted and smothered by internal movements. The disease had begun, the pregnancy counted for nothing.

"After this terrible confinement," resumed Monsieur Bernard,"so terrible and laborious that it made a

violent impression on my sonin law and began the mortal melancholy of which he died,my daughter,

two or three months later, complained of a general weakness affecting, particularly, her feet, which she

declared felt like cottonwood. This debility changed to paralysis,and what a paralysis! My daughter's feet

and legs can be bent or twisted in any way and she does not feel it. The limbs are there, apparently without

blood or muscles or bones. This affection, which is not connected with anything known to science, spread to

the arms and hands, and we then supposed it to be a disease of the spinal cord. Doctors and remedies only

made matters worse until at last my poor daughter could not be moved without dislocating either the

shoulders, the arms, or the knees. I kept an admirable surgeon almost constantly in the house, who, with the

doctor, or doctors (for many came out of interest in the case), replaced the dislocated limbs, sometimes,

would you believe it monsieur? three and four times a day! Ah!This disease has so many forms that I

forgot to tell you that during the first period of weakness, before the paralysis began, the strangest signs of

catalepsy appearedyou know what catalepsy is. She remained for days with her eyes wide open,

motionless, in whatever position she was when the attack seized her. The worst symptoms of that strange

affection were shown, even those of lockjaw. This phase of her illness suggested to me the idea of employing

magnetism, and I was about to do so when the paralysis began. My daughter, monsieur, has a miraculous

clearsightedness; her soul has been the theatre of all the wonders of somnambulism, just as her body has

"So that I," continued Monsieur Bernard paying no attention to the expression in Godefroid's eyes, "even I, a

child of the eighteenth century, fed on Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius,I, a son of the Revolution, who scoff at

all that antiquity and the middleages tell us of demoniacal possession,well, monsieur, I affirm that

nothing but such possession can explain the condition of my child. As a somnambulist she has never been

able to tell us the cause of her sufferings; she has never perceived it, and all the remedies she has proposed

when in that state, though carefully carried out, have done her no good. For instance, she wished to be

wrapped in the carcass of a freshly killed pig; then she ordered us to run the sharp points of rethot magnets

"And then! what endless other troubles, monsieur! her teeth fell out; she became deaf, then dumb; and then,

after six months of absolute dumbness, utter deafness, speech and hearing have returned to her! She

recovered, just as capriciously as she had lost, the use of her hands. But her feet have continued in the same

hapless condition for the last seven years. She has shown marked and wellcharacterized symptoms of

hydrophobia. Not only does the sight of water, the sound of water, the presence of a glass or a cup fling her at

times into a state of fury, but she barks like a dog, that melancholy bark, or rather howl, a dog utters when he

hears an organ. Several times we have thought her dying, and the priests had administered the last

sacraments; but she has always returned to life to suffer with her full reason and the most absolute clearness

of mind; for her faculties of heart and soul are still untouched. Though she has lived, monsieur, she has

caused the deaths of her mother and her husband, who have not been able to endure the suffering of such

scenes. Alas! monsieur, those distressing scenes are becoming worse. All the natural functions are perverted;

the Faculty alone can explain the strange aberration of the organs. She was in this state when I brought her

from the provinces to Paris in 1829, because the two or three distinguished doctors to whom I wrote,

Desplein, Bianchon, and Haudry, thought from my letters that I was telling them fables. Magnetism was then

energetically denied by all the schools of medicine, and without saying that they doubted either my word or

that of the provincial doctors, they said we could not have observed thoroughly, or else we had been misled

by the exaggeration which patients are apt to indulge in. But they were forced to change their minds when

they saw my daughter; and it is to the phenomena they then observed that the great researches made in these

latter days are owing; for I must tell you that they class my daughter's singular state as a form of neurosis. At

the last consultation of these gentlemen they decided to stop all medicines, to let nature alone and study it.

Since then I have had but one doctor, and he is the doctor who attends the poor of this quarter. We do nothing

"For the last five years," he continued, "my daughter alternates between revivals and relapses, but no new

phenomena have appeared. She suffers more or less from the varied nervous attacks I have briefly described

to you, but the paralysis of the legs and the derangement of the natural functions are constant. The poverty

into which we fell, and which alas! is only increasing, obliged me to leave the rooms that I took, in 1829, in

the faubourg du Roule. My daughter cannot endure the fatigue of moving; I came near losing her when I

brought her to Paris, and again when I removed her to this house. Here my worst financial misfortunes have

come upon me. After thirty years in the public service I was made to wait four years before my pension was

granted. I have only received it during the last six months and even then the new government has sternly cut

Godefroid made a gesture of surprise which seemed to ask for a more complete confidence. The old man so

understood it, for he answered immediately, casting a reproachful glance to heaven:

"I am one of the thousand victims of political reaction. I conceal my name because it is the mark for many a

revenge. If the lessons of experience were not always wasted from one generation to another I should warn

you, young man, never to adopt the sternness of any policy. Not that I regret having done my duty; my

conscience is perfectly clear on that score; but the powers of today have not that solidarity which formerly

bound all governments together as governments, no matter how different they might be; if today they

reward zealous agents it is because they are afraid of them. The instrument they have used, no matter how

faithful it has been, is, sooner or later, cast aside. You see in me one of the firmest supporters of the

government of the elder branch of the Bourbons, as I was later of the Imperial power; yet here I am in

penury! Since I am too proud to beg, they have never dreamed that I suffer untold misery. Five days ago,

monsieur, the doctor who takes care of my daughter, or rather I should say, observes her, told me that he was

unable to cure a disease the forms of which varied perpetually. He says that neurotic patients are the despair

of science, for the causes of their conditions are only to be found in some as yet unexplored system. He

advised me to have recourse to a physician who has been called a quack; but he carefully pointed out that this

man was a stranger, a Polish Jew, a refugee, and that the Parisian doctors were extremely jealous of certain

wonderful cures he had made, and also of the opinion expressed by many that he is very learned and

extremely able. Only, Dr. Berton says, he is very exacting and overbearing. He selects his patients, and will

not allow an instant of his time to be wasted; and he isa communist! His name is Halpersohn. My grandson

has been twice to find him, but he is always too busy to attend to him; he has not been to see us; I fully

"Because my grandson, who is sixteen years old, is even more shabbily dressed than I am. Would you believe

it, monsieur? I dare not go to that doctor; my clothes are so out of keeping with a man of my age and dignity.

If he saw the father as shabby as I am, and the boy even worse, he might not give my daughter the needful

attention; he would treat us as doctors treat the poor. And think, my dear monsieur, that I love my daughter

for all the suffering she has caused me, just as I used to love her for the joys I had in her. She has become

angelic. Alas! she is nothing now but a soul, a soul which beams upon her son and me; the body no longer

exists; she has conquered suffering. Think what a spectacle for a father! The whole world, to my daughter, is

within the walls of her room. I keep it filled with flowers, for she loves them. She reads a great deal; and

when she has the use of her hands she works like a fairy. She has no conception of the horrible poverty to

which we are reduced. This makes our household way of life so strange, so eccentric, that we cannot admit

visitors. Do you now understand me, monsieur? Can you not see how impossible a neighbor is? I should have

to ask for so much forbearance from him that the obligation would be too heavy. Besides, I have no time for

friends; I educate my grandson, and I have so much other work to do that I only sleep three, or at most four

"Monsieur," said Godefroid, who had listened patiently, observing the old man with sorrowful attention, "I

A scornful gesture, even an impatient one, escaped the old man, for he was one who believed in nothing good

"I will help you," pursued Godefroid, taking his hand, "but in my own way. Listen to me. What do you mean

"I myself," continued Godefroid after a pause, "have nothing, but I may be able to do much. I will obtain the

Polish doctor for you. And if your daughter is curable she shall be cured. We will find some way of paying

"Oh! if my daughter be cured I will make a sacrifice I can make but once," cried the old man. "I will sell the

"Oh, youth! youth!" exclaimed Monsieur Bernard, shaking his head. "Adieu, monsieur; or rather, au revoir.

This is the hour for the Library, and as my books are all sold I am obliged to go there every day to do my

work. I shall bear in mind the kindness you express, but I must wait and see whether you will grant us the

"Yes, monsieur, let me be your neighbor; for, I assure you, Barbet is not a man to allow the rooms to be long

unrented, and you might have far worse neighbors than I. I do not ask you to believe in me, only to let me be

"What object have you?" said the old man, preparing to go down the steps from the cloister of the Chartreux

The old man looked at Godefroid with frowning brows; his eyes were full of memories, like a man who turns

the leaves of his book of life, seeking for the action to which he owed this gratitude; then he turned away

"Well, for a first investigation I did not frighten him too much," thought Godefroid.

Godefroid now went to the rue d'Enfer, the address given him by Monsieur Alain, and there found Dr.

Berton, a cold, grave man, who astonished him much by confirming all the details given by Monsieur

Bernard about his daughter's illness. From him Godefroid obtained the address of Halpersohn.

This Polish doctor, since so celebrated, then lived in Chaillot, rue Marbeuf, in an isolated house where he

occupied the first floor. General Romanus Zarnowski lived on the second floor, and the servants of the two

refugees inhabited the garret of this little house, which had but two stories. Godefroid did not find

Halpersohn, and was told that he had gone into the provinces, sent for by a rich patient; he was almost glad

not to meet him, for in his hurry he had forgotten to supply himself with money; and he now went back to the

These various trips and the time consumed in dining at a restaurant in the rue de l'Odeon brought Godefroid

to the hour when he said he would return and take possession of his lodging on the boulevard du Mont

Parnasse. Nothing could be more forlorn than the manner in which Madame Vauthier had furnished the two

rooms. It seemed as though the woman let rooms with the express purpose that no one should stay in them.

Evidently the bed, chairs, tables, bureau, secretary, curtains, came from forced sales at auction, articles

Madame Vauthier, with her hands on her hips, stood waiting for thanks; she took Godefroid's smile for one of

"There! I picked out for you the very best we have, my dear Monsieur Godefroid," she said with a triumphant

air. "See those pretty silk curtains, and the mahogany bedstead which hasn't got a wormhole in it! It

formerly belonged to the Prince of Wissembourg. When he left his house, rue LouisleGrand, in 1809, I

was the kitchengirl. From there, I went to live as cook with the present owner of this house."

Godefroid stopped the flux of confidences by paying a month's rent in advance; and he also gave, in advance,

the six francs he was to pay Madame Vauthier for the care of his rooms. At that moment he heard barking,

and if he had not been duly warned by Monsieur Bernard, he would certainly have supposed that his neighbor

"Oh! don't be uneasy, monsieur; you'll only have one week to stand those persons. Monsieur Bernard can't

pay his rent and we are going to put him out. They are queer people, I tell you! I have never seen their dog.

That animal is sometimes months, yes, six months at a time without making a sound; you might think they

hadn't a dog. The beast never leaves the lady's room. There's a sick lady in there, and very sick, too; she's

never been out of her room since she came. Old Monsieur Bernard works hard, and the son, too; the lad is a

day scholar at the school of LouisleGrand, where he is nearly through his philosophy course, and only

sixteen, too; that's something to boast of! but the little scamp has to work like one possessed. Presently you'll

hear them bring out the plants they keep in the lady's room and carry in fresh ones. They themselves, the

grandfather and the boy, only eat bread, though they buy flowers and all sorts of dainties for the lady. She

must be very ill, not to leave her room once since entering it; and if one's to believe Monsieur Berton, the

"It seems he's a learned man; he writes and goes about to libraries. Monsieur lends him money on his

"The proprietor of the house, Monsieur Barbet, the old bookseller. He is a Norman who used to sell green

stuff in the streets, and afterwards set up a bookstall, in 1818, on the quay. Then he got a little shop, and now

he is very rich. He is a kind of a Jew, with a score of trades; he was even a partner with the Italian who built

"Oh! my dear monsieur, take my advice and don't go on; journalist? well,I won't say anything against

Godefroid could not help laughing as he bade goodnight to the portress, who thus, all unconsciously,

represented the bourgeoisie. As he went to bed in the horrible room, floored with bricks that were not even

colored, and hung with a paper at seven sous a roll, Godefroid not only regretted his little rooms in the rue

Chanoinesse, but also the society of Madame de la Chanterie. He felt a void in his soul. He had already

acquired habits of mind; and could not remember to have so keenly regretted anything in all his former life as

this break in his new existence. These thoughts, as they pressed upon him, had a great effect upon his soul; he

felt that no life could compare in value with the one he sought to embrace, and his resolution to emulate the

good old Alain became unshakable. Without having any vocation for the work, he had the will to do it.

The next day Godefroid, already habituated by his new life to rising early, saw from his window a young man

about seventeen years of age, dressed in a blouse, who was coming back, no doubt from the public fountain,

bringing a crock full of water in each hand. The face of this lad, who was not aware that he was seen,

revealed his feelings, and never had Godefroid observed one so artless and so melancholy. The graces of

youth were all repressed by poverty, by study, by great physical fatigue. Monsieur Bernard's grandson was

remarkable for a complexion of extreme whiteness, which the contrast with his dark hair seemed to make still

whiter. He made three trips; when he returned from the last he saw some men unloading a cord of wood

which Godefroid had ordered the night before, for the longdelayed winter of 1838 was beginning to be felt;

Nepomucene, who had begun his day by going for the wood (on which Madame Vauthier levied a handsome

tribute), spoke to the young lad while waiting until the woodman had sawed enough for him to carry upstairs.

It was easy to see that the sudden cold was causing anxiety to Monsieur Bernard's grandson, and that the sight

of the wood, as well as that of the threatening sky, warned him that they ought to be making their own

provision for wintry weather. Suddenly, however, as if reproaching himself for lost time, he seized his crocks

and hastily entered the house. It was, in fact, halfpast seven o'clock, the hour was just ringing from the

belfry of the convent of the Visitation, and he was due at the college of LouisleGrand by halfpast eight.

As the young lad entered the house, Godefroid went to his door to admit Madame Vauthier who brought her

new lodger the wherewithal to make a fire, and he thus became the witness of a scene which took place on

A neighboring gardener, who had rung several times at Monsieur Bernard's door without making any one

hear (for the bell was wrapped in paper), had a rather rough dispute with the young lad who now came up

with the water, demanding to be paid for the flowers he had supplied. As the man raised his voice angrily

Monsieur Bernard appeared. "Auguste," he said to his grandson, "dress yourself, it is time for school."

He himself took the two crocks of water, carried them into the first of his rooms, in which were many pots of

flowers, and returned to speak to the gardener, carefully closing the door behind him. Godefroid's door was

open, for Nepomucene had begun his trips, and was stacking the wood in the front room. The gardener was

silent in presence of Monsieur Bernard, whose tall figure, robed in a violet silk dressinggown, buttoned to

"You might ask for what is owing to you without such noise," said Monsieur Bernard.

"Be fair, my dear monsieur," said the gardener. "You agreed to pay me every week, and it now three months,

ten weeks, since I have had a penny; you owe me a hundred and twenty francs. We let out our plants to rich

people who pay us when we ask for the money; but this is the fifth time I have come to you for it. I have my

rent to pay and the wages of my men; I am not a bit richer than you. My wife, who supplied you with eggs

and milk, will not come here any more; you owe her thirty francs. She does not like to dun you, for she is

kindhearted, that she is! If I listened to her, I couldn't do business at all. And so I, who am not so softyou

Just then Auguste came out dressed in a shabby little green coat with cloth trousers of the same color, a black

cravat, and wornout boots. These clothes, though carefully brushed, showed the lowest degree of poverty;

they were all too short and too narrow, so that the lad seemed likely to crack them at every motion. The

seams were white, the edges curled, the buttonholes torn in spite of many mendings; the whole presenting to

the most unobservant eyes the heartbreaking stigmas of honest penury. This livery contrasted sadly with the

youth of the lad, who now disappeared munching a crust of stale bread with his strong and handsome teeth.

He breakfasted thus on his way to the rue SaintJacques, carrying his books and papers under his arm, and

wearing a little cap much too small for his head, from which stuck out a mass of magnificent black hair.

In passing before his grandfather the lad had given him rapidly a look of deep distress; for he knew him to be

in an almost hopeless difficulty, the consequences of which might be terrible. To leave room for the boy to

pass, the gardener had stepped back to the sill of Godefroid's door, and as at that moment Nepomucene

arrived with a quantity of wood, the creditor was forced to retreat into the room.

"Monsieur Bernard!" cried the widow Vauthier, "do you think Monsieur Godefroid hired his rooms to have

"Remain where you are!" cried Godefroid, addressing the gardener; "and you, my dear neighbor," he added,

looking at Monsieur Bernard, who seemed insensible to the cruel insult, "if it is convenient to you to have an

The old man, half stupefied with his troubles, cast a look of gratitude on Godefroid.

"As for you, my dear Madame Vauthier," continued Godefroid, "don't be so rough with monsieur, who is in

the first place an old man, and one to whom you owe the obligation of my lodging here."

"Besides, if poor people do not help each other, who will help them? Leave us, Madame Vauthier; I'll blow

the fire myself. Have the rest of my wood put in your cellar; I am sure you will take good care of it."

Madame Vauthier disappeared, for Godefroid in telling her to take care of his wood had given an opportunity

"Come in this way," said Godefroid, offering chairs to both debtor and creditor.

"My good Monsieur Cartier," went on Godefroid, "rich people do not pay as regularly as you say they do, and

you ought not to dun a worthy man for a few louis. Monsieur draws his pension every six months, and he

could not make you an assignment of it for such a paltry sum. I am willing to advance the money, if you

"Monsieur Bernard drew his pension two weeks ago, and has not paid me. I am sorry to trouble him, of

Monsieur Bernard, who was listening to some sound in his own rooms and paying no attention to what was

being said, now heard a cry through the partitions and hurried away without a word.

"Come, come, my good man," said Godefroid, taking advantage of the old man's absence, "bring some nice

flowers, your best flowers, this very morning, and tell your wife to send the eggs and milk as usual; I will pay

"Then you must know more than Madame Vauthier does; she sent me word to hurry if I hoped to be paid," he

said. "Neither she nor I can make out why folks who eat nothing but bread and the odds and ends of

vegetables, bits of carrots, turnips, and such things, which they get at the backdoors of restaurants,yes,

monsieur, I assure you I came one day on the little fellow filling an old handbag,well, I want to know why

such persons spend nearly forty francs a month on flowers. They say the old man's pension is only three

"At any rate," said Godefroid, "it is not your business to complain if they ruin themselves in flowers."

"Very good, monsieur," said the gardener, with a tinge of respect. "Monsieur no doubt wants to see the

"My good friend," said Godefroid, stiffly, "you forget yourself. Go home now and bring fresh plants for those

you are to take away. If you can also supply me with good cream and fresh eggs I will take them, and I will

"It is one of the finest in Paris, monsieur. I exhibit at the Luxembourg. My garden, which covers three acres,

"Very good, Monsieur Cartier. You are, I see, much richer than I. Have some consideration for us, therefore.

"And yet I was once just like that," thought Godefroid, blowing his fire. "What a fine specimen of the

bourgeois of today!gossiping, inquisitive, crazy for equality, jealous of his customers, furious at not

knowing why a poor sick woman stays in her room without being seen; concealing his wealth, and yet vain

enough to betray it when he thinks it will put him above his neighbor. That man ought to be the lieutenant of

his company. I dare say he is. With what ease he plays the scene of Monsieur Dimanche! A little more and I

The old man broke into this soliloquy, which proves how Godefroid's ideas had changed in four months.

"Excuse me, neighbor," said Monsieur Bernard, in a troubled voice; "I see you have sent that gardener away

satisfied, for he bowed civilly to me on the landing. It seems, young man, as if Providence had sent you to me

at the very moment when I was about to succumb. Alas! the hard talk of that man must have shown you many

things! It is true that I received the halfyearly payment of my pension two weeks ago; but I had more

pressing debts than his, and I was forced to put aside my rent for fear of being turned out of the house. I have

"Well, then, you know it would be her death warrant, for I should then be compelled to put her in a hospital.

My grandson and I were fearing that end this morning; but we do not dread Cartier so much as we do the

"My dear Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid, "I have plenty of wood; take all you want."

"By accepting them without difficulty," said Godefroid, quickly, "and by giving me your confidence."

"But what are my claims to so much generosity?" asked Monsieur Bernard, becoming once more distrustful.

"Ah! my pride and that of my grandson are lowered indeed!" he cried bitterly. "We are compelled to offer

explanations to the few creditorsonly two or threewhom we cannot pay. The utterly unfortunate have no

creditors; to have them one must needs present an exterior of some show, and that we have now lost. But I

have not yet abdicated my commonsense,my reason," he added, as if he were talking to himself.

"Monsieur," replied Godefroid, gravely, "the history you gave me yesterday would touch even a usurer."

"No, no! for Barbet, that publisher, the proprietor of this house, is speculating on my poverty, and has sent the

"I will tell you later," replied the old man. "My daughter is cold, and since you offer it, I am reduced to accept

"I will carry in some wood," said Godefroid, gathering up ten or a dozen sticks, and taking them into

Monsieur Bernard's first room. The old man took as many himself; and when he saw the little provision

safely deposited, he could not restrain the silly, and even idiotic smile with which those who are saved from a

mortal danger, which has seemed to them inevitable, express their joy; for terror still lingers in their joy.

"Accept things from me, my dear Monsieur Bernard, without reluctance; and when your daughter is safe, and

you are once more at ease, we will settle all. Meantime, let me act for you. I have been to see that Polish

At this moment a voice which seemed to Godefroid to have, and really had, a fresh, melodious ring, cried out,

While speaking to the old man, Godefroid had noticed that the jambs of a door leading to another room were

painted in a delicate manner, altogether different from that of the rest of the lodging. His curiosity, already so

keenly excited, was now roused to the highest pitch. He was conscious that his mission of benevolence was

becoming nothing more than a pretext; what he really wanted was to see that sick woman. He refused to

believe for an instant that a creature endowed with such a voice could be an object of repulsion.

"You do, indeed, take too much trouble, papa!" said the voice. "Why not have more servants?and at your

"But you know, my dear Vanda, that the boy and I cannot bear that any one should wait upon you but

Those sentences, which Godefroid heard through the door, or rather divined, for a heavy portiere on the

inside smothered the sounds, gave him an inkling of the truth. The sick woman, surrounded by luxury, was

evidently kept in ignorance of the real situation of her father and son. The violet silk dressinggown of

Monsieur Bernard, the flowers, his remarks to Cartier, had already roused some suspicion of this in

Godefroid's mind. The young man stood still where he was, bewildered by this prodigy of paternal love. The

contrast, such as he imagined it, between the invalid's room and the rest of that squalid place, yes, it was

Through the door of a third chamber, which the old man had left open, Godefroid beheld two cots of painted

wood, like those of the cheapest boardingschools, each with a straw bed and a thin mattress, on which there

was but one blanket. A small iron stove like those that porters cook by, near which lay a few squares of peat,

would alone have shown the poverty of the household without the help of other details.

Advancing a step or two, Godefroid saw utensils such as the poorest persons use,earthenware jugs, and

pans in which potatoes floated in dirty water. Two tables of blackened wood, covered with books and papers,

stood before the windows that looked out upon the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and indicated the nocturnal

occupations of father and son. On each of the tables was a flat iron candlestick, such as are used by the very

poor, and in them Godefroid noticed tallowcandles of the kind that are sold at eight to the pound.

On a third table glittered two forks and spoons and another little spoon of silvergilt, together with plates,

bowls, and cups of Sevres china, and a silvergilt knife and fork in an open case, all evidently for the service

The stove was lighted; the water in the copper was steaming slightly. A painted wooden closet or wardrobe

contained, no doubt, the linen and clothing of Monsieur Bernard's daughter. On the old man's bed Godefroid

noticed that the habiliments he had worn the night before lay spread as a covering. The floor, evidently

seldom swept, looked like that of a boy's classroom. A sixpound loaf of bread, from which some slices had

been cut, was on a shelf above the table. Here was poverty in its last stages, poverty resolutely accepted with

stern endurance, making shift with the lowest and poorest means. A strong and sickening odor came from this

The antechamber, in which Godefroid stood, was at any rate decent, and he suspected that it served to conceal

the horrors of the room in which the grandfather and the grandson lived. This antechamber, hung with a

checked paper of Scotch pattern, held four walnut chairs, a small table, a colored engraving of the Emperor

after Horace Vernet, also portraits of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Prince Poniatowski, no doubt the friend

of Monsieur Bernard's fatherinlaw. The window was draped with white calico curtains edged with red

Godefroid watched for Nepomucene, and when the latter made his next trip with wood signed to him to stack

it very gently in Monsieur Bernard's antechamber; then (a perception which proved some progress in our

initiate) he closed the door of the inner lair that Madame Vauthier's slave might not see the old man's squalor.

The antechamber was just then encumbered with three plantstands filled with plants; two were oblong, one

round, all three were of a species of ebony and of great elegance; even Nepomucene took notice of them and

"Jean! don't make so much noise!" called Monsieur Bernard from his daughter's room.

"Did you hear that?" whispered Nepomucene to Godefroid. "He's cracked, for sure, that old fellow."

"Yes, they'll have made my bones into charcoal by that time; I often see the carts of the refineries coming to

Montsouris for charcoal; they tell me they make sugar of it." And he departed after another load of wood,

Godefroid discreetly withdrew to his own rooms, closing Monsieur Bernard's door behind him. Madame

Vauthier, who during this time had been preparing her new lodger's breakfast, now came up to serve it,

attended by Felicite. Godefroid, lost in reflection, stared into his fire. He was absorbed in meditation on this

great misery which contained so many different miseries, and yet within which he could see the ineffable joys

of the many triumphs of paternal and filial love; they were gems shining in the blackness of the pit.

"What romances, even those that are most famous, can equal such realities?" he thought. "What a life it will

be to relieve the burden of such existences, to seek out causes and effects and remedy them, calming sorrows,

helping good; to incarnate one's own being in misery; to familiarize one's self with homes like that; to act out

constantly in life those dramas which move us so in fiction! I never imagined that good could be more

"Is monsieur satisfied with his breakfast?" asked Madame Vauthier, who now, with Felicite's assistance,

Godefroid then saw a cup of excellent cafe au lait with a smoking omelet, fresh butter, and little red radishes.

"They were given me by Monsieur Cartier," answered Madame Vauthier; "and I make a present of them to

"Very good, thirty sous then;" said Godefroid; "but how is it that they ask me only fortyfive francs a month

for dinner, close by here at Machillot's? That is the same price you ask me for breakfast."

"But what a difference, monsieur, between preparing a dinner for fifteen or twenty persons and going out to

get you just what you want for breakfast! See here! there's a roll, eggs, butter, the cost of lighting a fire,

sugar, milk, coffee!just think! they ask you sixteen sous for a cup of coffee alone on the place de l'Odeon,

and then you have to give a sou or two to the waiter. Here you have no trouble; you can breakfast in slippers."

"Without Madame Cartier who supplies me with milk and eggs and herbs I couldn't manage it. You ought to

go and see their establishment, monsieur. Ha! it's fine! They employ five journeymen gardeners, and

Nepomucene goes there in summer to draw water for them; they hire him of me as a waterer. They make lots

of money out of melons and strawberries. It seems monsieur takes quite an interest in Monsieur Bernard,"

continued the widow in dulcet tones; "or he wouldn't be responsible for his debts. Perhaps he doesn't know all

that family owes. There's the lady who keeps the circulating library on the place SaintMichel; she is always

coming here after thirty francs they owe her,and she needs it, God knows! That sick woman in there, she

"Ah! there's the old man going now to fetch a roll and cream for his daughter's tea,yes, tea! she lives on

tea, that lady. She drinks it twice a day. And twice a week she has to have sweet things. Oh! she's dainty! The

old man buys cakes and pates from the pastry cook in the rue de Buci. He don't care what he spends, if it's for

her. He calls her his daughter! It ain't often that men of his age do for a daughter what he does for her! He just

kills himself, he and Auguste too, for that woman. Monsieur is just like me; I'd give anything to see her.

Monsieur Berton says she's a monster,something like those they show for money. That's the reason they've

come to live here, in this lonely quarter. Well, so monsieur thinks of dining at Madame Machillot's, does he?"

"Monsieur, it isn't that I want to interfere, but I must say, comparing food with food, you'd do much better to

dine in the rue de Tournon; you needn't engage by the month, and you'll find a better table."

"At the successors to Madame Giraud. That's where the gentlemen upstairs go; they are satisfied, and more

"My dear monsieur," said the woman, emboldened by the goodnature which Godefroid intentionally

assumed, "tell me seriously, you are not going to be such a muff as to pay Monsieur Bernard's debts? It

would really trouble me if you did; for just reflect, my kind monsieur Godefroid, he's nearly seventy, and

after him, what then? not a penny of pension! How'll you get paid? Young men are so imprudent! Do you

"Oh! to whom? that's not my affair," said the widow, mysteriously; "it is enough that he does owe them.

Between ourselves I'll tell you this: somebody will soon be down on him for that money, and he can't get a

"Three thousand francs!" repeated Godefroid; "oh, you needn't be afraid I'll lend him that. If I had three

thousand francs to dispose of I shouldn't be your lodger. But I can't bear to see others suffer, and just for a

hundred or so of francs I sha'n't let my neighbor, a man with white hair too, lack for bread or wood; why, one

often loses as much as that at cards. But three thousand francs! good heavens! what are you thinking of?"

Madame Vauthier, deceived by Godefroid's apparent frankness, let a smile of satisfaction appear on her

specious face, which confirmed all her lodger's suspicions. Godefroid was convinced that the old woman was

"It is strange, monsieur," she went on, "what fancies one takes into one's head! You'll think me very curious,

but yesterday, when I saw you talking with Monsieur Bernard I said to myself that you were the clerk of

some publisher; for this, you know, is a publisher's quarter. I once lodged the foreman of a printinghouse in

"Oh, pooh! you can tell me, or you needn't tell me; I shall know it all the same," retorted Vauthier. "There's

Monsieur Bernard, for instance, for eighteen months he concealed everything from me, but on the nineteenth

I discovered that he had been a magistrate, a judge somewhere or other, I forget where, and was writing a

book on law matters. What did he gain by concealing it, I ask you. If he had told me I'd have said nothing

"I thought so!" exclaimed Madame Vauthier, turning round from the bed she had been making as a pretext for

staying in the room. "You have come here to cut the ground from under the feet ofGood! a man warned is

"Stop!" cried Godefroid, placing himself between the Vauthier and the door. "Look here, what interest have

"Gracious!" said the old woman, eyeing Godefroid cautiously, "you're a bold one, anyhow."

She went to the door of the outer room and bolted it; then she came back and sat down on a chair beside the

"On my word of honor, and as sure as my name is Vauthier, I took you for a student until I saw you giving

your wood to that old Bernard. Ha! you're a sly one; and what a playactor! I was so certain you were a

ninny! Look here, will you guarantee me a thousand francs? As sure as the sun shines, my old Barbet and

"They! five hundred francs! nonsense!" cried Godefroid. "I know their ways; two hundred is the very most,

my good woman, and even that is only promised; you can't assign it. But I will say this: if you will put me in

the way to do the business they want to do with Monsieur Bernard I will pay you four hundred francs. Now,

"They have advanced fifteen hundred francs upon the work," said Madame Vauthier, making no further effort

at deception, "and the old man has signed an acknowledgment for three thousand. They wouldn't do it under a

hundred per cent. He thought he could easily pay them out of his book, but they have arranged to get the

better of him there. It was they who sent Cartier here, and the other creditors."

Here Godefroid gave the old woman a glance of ironical intelligence, which showed her that he saw through

the role she was playing in the interest of her proprietor. Her words were, in fact, a double illumination to

Godefroid; the curious scene between himself and the gardener was now explained.

"Well," she resumed, "they have got him now. Where is he to find three thousand francs? They intend to offer

him five hundred the day he puts the first volume of his book into their hands, and five hundred for each

succeeding volume. The affair isn't in their names; they have put it into the hands of a publisher whom Barbet

"Yes, that little Morand, who was formerly Barbet's clerk. It seems they expect a good bit of money out of the

Just then a gentle rap was heard at the door of the outer room. Godefroid, glad of the interruption, having got

"What is said, is said, Madame Vauthier," he remarked as he did so. The visitor was Monsieur Bernard.

"Ah! Monsieur Bernard," cried the widow when she saw him, "I've got a letter downstairs for you."

The old man followed her down a few steps. When they were out of hearing from Godefroid's room she

"No," she said, "I haven't any letter; I only wanted to tell you to beware of that young man; he belongs to a

The look of calm coldness with which Monsieur Bernard now entered the room contrasted so strongly with

the frank and cordial air he had worn not an instant earlier that Godefroid was forcibly struck by it.

"Pardon me, monsieur," said the old man, stiffly, "but you have shown me many favors, and a benefactor

"I, who for the last five years have endured a passion like that of our Lord, I, who for thirtysix years

represented social welfare, government, public vengeance, have, as you may well believe, no illusionsno, I

have nothing left but anguish. Well, monsieur, I was about to say that your little act in closing the door of my

wretched lair, that simple little thing, was to me the glass of water Bossuet tells of. Yes, I did find in my

heart, that exhausted heart which cannot weep, just as my withered body cannot sweat, I did find a last drop

of the elixir which makes us fancy in our youth that all human beings are noble, and I came to offer you my

"Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid, remembering the kind old Alain's lessons. "I have done nothing to

"Ah, that is frankness indeed!" said the former magistrate. "Well, it pleases me. I was about to reproach you;

pardon me, I now esteem you. So you are a publisher, and you have come here to get my work away from

Barbet, Metivier, and Morand? All is now explained. You are making me advances in money as they did,

"Did Madame Vauthier just tell you that I was employed by a publisher?" asked Godefroid.

"Well, then, Monsieur Bernard, before I can say how much I can give over what those other gentlemen offer,

"That is fair," said Monsieur Bernard, who seemed rather pleased to find himself the object of a competition

"It is only halfpast nine, my daughter has breakfasted, and Cartier will not bring the flowers for an hour or

"Monsieur Godefroid, the work in question was projected by me in 1825, at the time when the ministry, being

alarmed by the persistent destruction of landed estates, proposed that law of primogeniture which was, you

will remember, defeated. I had remarked certain imperfections in our codes and in the fundamental

institutions of France. Our codes have often been the subject of important works, but those works were all

from the point of view of jurisprudence. No one had even ventured to consider the work of the Revolution, or

(if you prefer it) of Napoleon, as a whole; no one had studied the spirit of those laws, and judged them in

their application. That is the main purpose of my work; it is entitled, provisionally, 'The Spirit of the New

Laws;' it includes organic laws as well as codes, all codes; for we have many more than five codes.

Consequently, my work is in several volumes; six in all, the last being a volume of citations, notes, and

references. It will take me now about three months to finish it. The proprietor of this house, a former

publisher, of whom I made a few inquiries, perceived, scented I may say, the chance of a speculation. I, in the

first instance, thought only of doing a service to my country, and not of my own profit. Well, this Barbet has

circumvented me. You will ask me how it was possible for a publisher to get the better of a magistrate, a man

who knows the laws. Well, it was in this way: You know my history; Barbet is an usurer; he has the keen

glance and the shrewd action of that breed of men. His money was always at my heels to help me over my

worst needs. Strange to say, on the days I was most defenceless against despair he happened to appear."

"No, no, my dear Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid, "he had a spy in Madame Vauthier; she told him when

"He has lent me from time to time fifteen hundred francs, for which I have signed three notes of a thousand

francs each, and those notes are secured by a sort of mortgage on the copyright of my book, so that I cannot

sell my book unless I pay off those notes, and the notes are now protested,he has taken the matter into

court and obtained a judgment against me. Such are the complications of poverty! At the lowest valuation, the

first edition of my great work, a work representing ten years' toil and thirtysix years' experience, is fully

worth ten thousand francs. Well, ten days ago Morand proposed to give me three thousand francs and my

notes cancelled for the entire rights in perpetuity. Now as it is not possible for me to refund the amount of my

notes and interest, namely, three thousand two hundred and forty francs, I must,unless you intend to step

between those usurers and me,I must yield to them. They are not content with my word of honor; they first

obtained the notes, then they had them protested, and now I am threatened with arrest for debt. If I could

manage to pay them back, those scoundrels would have doubled their money. If I accept their terms they will

make a fortune out of my book and I shall get almost nothing; one of them is a papermaker, and God knows

how they may keep down the costs of publication. They will have my name, and that alone will sell ten

"How could I help it? Not a friend, not a claim that I could make! And yet I saved many heads, if I made

some fall! And, then, my daughter, my daughter! whose nurse I am, whose companion I must be; so that I can

work but a few hours snatched from sleep. Ah, young man! none but the wretched can judge the wretched!

"Monsieur, I do not ask your name. I cannot provide three thousand francs, especially if I pay Halpersohn and

your lesser debts; but I will save you if you will promise me not to part with your book without letting me

know. It is impossible for me to arrange a matter as important as this without consulting others. My backers

are powerful, and I can promise you success if you, in return, will promise me absolute secrecy, even to your

"The only success I care for is the recovery of my poor Vanda; for such sufferings as hers extinguish every

other feeling in a father's heart. As for fame, what is that to one who sees an open grave before him?"

"I will come and see you this evening; they expect Halpersohn at any time, and I shall go there day after day

"Ah, monsieur! if you should be the cause of my daughter's recovery, I would like,yes, I would like to give

"I let that old Vauthier think so in order to discover the traps they were laying for you."

"Godefroid," replied the initiate; "and since you allow me to offer you enough to make the pot boil, you can

The old man was far too moved to laugh at a joke. He held out his hand to Godefroid, and pressed that which

"You wish to keep your incognito?" he said, looking at Godefroid sadly, with some uneasiness.

"Well, as you will. Come tonight, and you shall see my daughter if her condition permits."

This was evidently a great concession in the eyes of the poor father, and he had the satisfaction of seeing, by

An hour later, Cartier returned with a number of beautiful flowering plants, which he placed himself in the

jardinieres, covering them with fresh moss. Godefroid paid his bill; also that of the circulating library, which

was brought soon after. Books and flowers!these were the daily bread of this poor invalid, this tortured

As he thought of this family, coiled by misfortunes like that of the Laocoon (sublime image of so many

lives), Godefroid, who was now on his way on foot to the rue Marbeuf, was conscious in his heart of more

curiosity than benevolence. This sick woman, surrounded by luxury in the midst of such direful poverty,

made him forget the horrible details of the strangest of all nervous disorders, which is happily rare, though

recorded by a few historians. One of our most gossiping chroniclers, Tallemant des Reaux, cites an instance

of it. The mind instinctively pictures a woman as being elegant in the midst of her worst sufferings; and

Godefroid let himself dwell on the pleasure of entering that chamber where none but the father, son, and

doctor had been admitted for six years. Nevertheless, he ended by blaming himself for his curiosity. He even

felt that the sentiment, natural as it was, would cease as he went on exercising his beneficent ministry, from

Such agents do reach in time a divine serenity which nothing surprises or confounds; just as in love we come

to the divine quietude of that emotion, sure of its strength, sure of its lastingness, through our constant

Godefroid was told that Halpersohn had returned during the night, but had been obliged to go out at once to

visit patients who were awaiting him. The porter told Godefroid to come the next day before nine o'clock in

Remembering Monsieur Alain's injunction to parsimony in his personal expenses, Godefroid dined for

twentyfive sous in the rue de Tournon, and was rewarded for his abnegation by finding himself in the midst

of compositors and pressmen. He heard a discussion on costs of manufacturing, and learned that an edition of

one thousand copies of an octavo volume of forty sheets did not cost more than thirty sous a copy, in the best

style of printing. He resolved to ascertain the price at which publishers of law books sold their volumes, so as

to be prepared for a discussion with the men who held Monsieur Bernard in their clutches if he should have to

Towards seven in the evening he returned to the boulevard du Mont Parnasse, by way of the rue de

Vaugiraud and the rue de l'Ouest, and he saw then how deserted the quarter was, for he met no one. It is true

that the cold was rigorous, and the snow fell in great flakes, the wheels of the carriages making no noise upon

"Ah, here you are, monsieur!" said Madame Vauthier. "If I had known you were coming home so early I

"I don't want one," said Godefroid, seeing that the widow followed him. "I shall spend the evening in

"Well, well! you must be his cousin, if you are hand and glove like that! Perhaps monsieur will finish now the

"Ah, yes!about that four hundred francs. Look here, my good Madame Vauthier, you are trying to see

which way the cat jumps, and you'll tumble yourself between two stools. As for me, you have betrayed me,

"Tomorrow I shall not breakfast here. I am going out, like your authors, at cockcrow."

Godefroid's antecedents, his life as a man of the world and a journalist, served him in this, that he felt quite

sure, unless he took this tone, that Barbet's spy would warn the old publisher of danger, and probably lead to

active measures under which Monsieur Bernard would before long be arrested; whereas, if he left the trio of

harpies to suppose that their scheme ran no risk of defeat, they would keep quiet.

But Godefroid did not yet know Parisian human nature when embodied in a Vauthier. That woman resolved

to have Godefroid's money and Barbet's too. She instantly ran off to her proprietor, while Godefroid changed

his clothes in order to present himself properly before the daughter of Monsieur Bernard.

Eight o'clock was striking from the convent of the Visitation, the clock of the quarter, when the inquisitive

Godefroid tapped gently at his neighbor's door. Auguste opened it. As it happened to be a Saturday, the

young lad had his evening to himself. Godefroid beheld him in a little sackcoat of black velvet, a blue silk

cravat, and black trousers. But his surprise at the youth's appearance, so different from that of this outside

life, ceased as soon as he had entered the invalid's chamber. He then understood the reason why both father

For a moment the contrast between the squalor of the other rooms, as he had seen them that morning, and the

luxury of this chamber, was so great that Godefroid was dazzled, though habituated for years to the luxury

The walls of the room were hung with yellow silk, relieved by twisted fringes of a bright green, giving a gay

and cheerful aspect to the chamber, the cold tiled floor of which was hidden by a moquette carpet with a

white ground strewn with flowers. The windows, draped by handsome curtains lined with white silk, were

like conservatories, so full were they of plants in flower. The blinds were lowered, which prevented this

luxury, so rare in that quarter of the town, from being seen from the street. The woodwork was painted in

At the door was a heavy portiere, embroidered by hand with fantastic foliage on a yellow ground, so thick

that all sounds from without were stifled. This magnificent curtain was made by the sick woman herself, who

At the farther end of the room, and opposite to the door, was the fireplace, with a green velvet mantelshelf,

on which a few extremely elegant ornaments, the last relics of the opulence of two families, were arranged.

These consisted of a curious clock, in the shape of an elephant supporting on its back a porcelain tower which

was filled with the choicest flowers; two candelabra in the same style, and several precious Chinese treasures.

The largest of the flowerstands was placed in the middle of the room, and above it hung a porcelain

The bed on which the old man's daughter lay was one of those beautiful white and gold carved bedsteads

such as were made in the Louis XV. period. By the sick woman's pillow was a very pretty marquetry table,

on which were the various articles necessary to this bedridden life. Against the wall was a bracket lamp with

two branches, either of which could be moved forward or back by a mere touch of the hand. A small table,

adapted to the use of the invalid, extended in front of her. The bed, covered with a beautiful counterpane, and

draped with curtains held back by cords, was heaped with books, a workbasket, and articles of embroidery,

beneath which Godefroid would scarcely have distinguished the sick woman herself had it not been for the

There was nothing of her to be seen but a face of extreme whiteness, browned around the eyes by suffering,

in which shone eyes of fire, its principal adornment being a magnificent mass of black hair, the numerous

heavy curls of which, carefully arranged, showed that the dressing of those beautiful locks occupied a good

part of the invalid's morning. This supposition was further strengthened by the portable mirror which lay on

No modern arrangement for comfort was lacking. Even a few knick knacks, which amused poor Vanda,

The old man rose from an elegant Louis XV. sofa in white and cold, covered with tapestry, and advanced to

Godefroid, who would certainly not have recognized him elsewhere; for that cold, stern face now wore the

gay expression peculiar to old men of the world, who retain the manners and apparent frivolity of the nobility

about a court. His wadded violet gown was in keeping with this luxury, and he took snuff from a gold box

"Here, my dear daughter," said Monsieur Bernard, taking Godefroid by the hand, "is the neighbor of whom I

He signed to his grandson to draw up one of two armchairs, similar in style to the sofa, which stood beside

Vanda made a motion with her head in answer to Godefroid's low bow; by the very way in which her neck

bent and then recovered itself, Godefroid saw that the whole physical life of the invalid was in her head. The

thin arms and flaccid hands lay on the fine, white linen of the sheets, like things not connected with the body,

which, indeed, seemed to fill no place at all in the bed. The articles necessary for a sick person were on

"You are the first person, monsieur,except my doctors, who are not men to me,whom I have seen for six

years; therefore you cannot doubt the interest you have excited in my mind, since my father told me this

morning that you were to pay me a visitinterest! no, it was an unconquerable curiosity, like that of our

mother Eve. My father, who is so good to me, and my son, whom I love so much, do certainly suffice to fill

the desert of a soul which is almost without a body; but after all, that soul is still a woman's; I feel it in the

childish joy the thought of your visit has brought me. You will do me the pleasure to take a cup of tea with

"Monsieur has promised to pass the evening here," said the old man, with the air of a millionnaire receiving a

Auguste, sitting on a tapestried chair at a marquetry table with brass trimmings, was reading a book by the

"Auguste, my dear," said his mother, "tell Jean to serve tea in an hour. Would you believe it monsieur," she

added, "that for six years I have been waited upon wholly by my father and son, and now, I really think, I

could bear no other attendance. If they were to fail me I should die. My father will not even allow Jean, a

"I should think not!" said the old man, quickly; "monsieur knows him; he chops wood and brings it in, and

cooks; he wears dirty aprons, and would soon spoil all this elegance in which you take such pleasure this

"But why?" she said; "if Jean did any damage to my room my father would restore it."

"Yes, my child; but remember you could not leave it; you don't know what Parisian tradesmen are; they

would take three months to renovate your room. Let Jean take care of it? no, indeed! how can you think of it?

Auguste and I take such precautions that we allow no dust, and so avoid all sweeping."

"It is a matter of health, not economy," said Godefroid; "your father is right."

That voice was a concert of delightful sounds. Soul, motion, life itself were concentrated in the glance and in

the voice of this woman; for Vanda had succeeded by study, for which time was certainly not lacking to her,

"I have much to make me happy in the midst of my sufferings, monsieur," she said; "and certainly ample

means are a great help in bearing trouble. If we had been poor I should have died eighteen years ago, but I

still live. Oh, yes, I have many enjoyments, and they are all the greater because they are perpetually won from

"Madame, I should like to listen to you forever," replied Godefroid; "I have never heard a voice that was

"Don't speak of Rubini or the opera," said the old man, sadly. "That is a pleasure that, rich as I am, I cannot

give to my daughter. She was once a great musician, and the opera was her greatest pleasure."

"Yes, and this is the process," said the sick woman, laughing; "when they've cried 'puss, puss, puss,' often

Godefroid gave a rapid glance at Monsieur Bernard, who, seeing the tears in the eyes of his new neighbor,

seemed to be making him a sign not to undo the results of the selfcommand he and his grandson had

This sublime and perpetual imposture, proved by the complete illusion of the sick woman, produced on

Godefroid's mind the impression of an Alpine precipice down which two chamois hunters picked their way.

The magnificent gold snuffbox enriched with diamonds with which the old man carelessly toyed as he sat

by his daughter's bedside was like the stroke of genius which in the work of a great man elicits a cry of

admiration. Godefroid looked at that snuffbox, wondering it had not been sold or found its way to the

"This evening, Monsieur Godefroid, my daughter received the announcement of your visit with such

excitement that all the curious symptoms of her malady which have troubled us very much for the last twelve

"And I, too," said the invalid in her caressing tones, drooping her head with a motion full of coquetry.

"Monsieur is to me a deputy from the world. Since I was twenty years old, monsieur, I have not seen a salon,

or a party, or a ball. And I must tell you that I love dancing, and adore the theatre, especially the opera. I

imagine everything by thought! I read a great deal; and then my father, who goes into society, tells me about

"Yes, when he goes to the opera, and he often goes, he describes to me the singing and tells me about the

dresses of the ladies. Oh! I would I were cured for the sake of my father, who lives solely for me as I live by

him and for him, and then for my son, to whom I would fain be a real mother. Ah! monsieur, what blessed

beings my old father and my good son are! I should also like to recover so as to hear Lablache, Rubini,

"Come, come, my child, be calm! If we talk music we are lost!" said the old man, smiling.

That smile, which rejuvenated his face, was evidently a perpetual deception to the sick woman.

"Yes, yes, I'll be good," said Vanda, with a petulant little air; "but when will you give me an accordion?"

The portable instrument then called by that name had just been invented. It could, if desired, be placed at the

edge of a bedstead, and only needed the pressure of a foot to give out the sounds of an organ. This

instrument, in its highest development, was equal to a piano; but the cost of it was three hundred francs.

Vanda, who read the newspapers and reviews, knew of the existence of the instrument, and had wished for

"Yes, madame, you shall have one," said Godefroid, after exchanging a look with the old man. "A friend of

mine who is just starting for Algiers has a fine instrument and I will borrow it of him. Before buying, you had

better try one. It is possible that the powerful, vibrating tones may be too much for you."

"Ah" she exclaimed, looking at Godefroid, who fancied he could see a soul hovering in the air as he

Until then, Godefroid had never known the power of voice and eyes when the whole of life is put into them.

The glance was no longer a glance, a look, it was a flame, or rather, a divine incandescence, a radiance,

communicating life and mind,it was thought made visible. The voice, with its thousand intonations, took

the place of motions, gestures, attitudes. The variations of the complexion, changing color like the famous

chameleon, made the illusion, perhaps we should say the mirage, complete. That suffering head lying on the

Never in his life had Godefroid seen so wonderful a sight; he could scarcely control his emotions. Another

wonder, for all was wondrous in this scene, so full of horror and yet of poesy, was that in those who saw it

soul alone existed. This atmosphere, filled with mental emotions only, had a celestial influence. Those

present felt their bodies as little as the sick woman felt hers. They were all mind. As Godefroid contemplated

that frail fragment of woman he forgot the surrounding elegancies of the room, and fancied himself beneath

the open heavens. It was not until half an hour had passed that he came back to his sense of things about him;

he then noticed a fine picture, which the invalid asked him to examine, saying it was by Gericault.

"Gericault," she told him, "came from Rouen; his family were under certain obligations to my father, who

was president of the court, and he showed his gratitude by painting that portrait of me when I was a girl of

"It is a beautiful picture," said Godefroid; "and quite unknown to those who are in search of the rare works of

"To me it is merely an object of affection," replied Vanda; "I live in my heart only,and it is a beautiful

life," she added, casting a look at her father in which she seemed to put her very soul. "Ah! monsieur, if you

only knew what my father really is! Who would believe that the stern and lofty magistrate to whom the

Emperor was under such obligations that he gave him that snuffbox, and on whom Charles X. bestowed as a

reward that Sevres teaset which you see behind you, who would suppose that that rigid supporter of power

and law, that learned jurist, should have within his heart of rock the heart of a mother, too? Oh! papa, papa!

The old man rose, leaned over the bed and kissed the broad poetic forehead of his daughter, whose passionate

excitements did not always take the turn of this tempest of affection. Then he walked about the room; his

"Ah! what a noble mission, monsieur!" she said. "Do you know the thought of devoting myself to that very

work has often come to me? but ah! what ideas do not come to me?" she added, with a motion of her head.

"Suffering is like a torch which lights up life. If I were ever to recover health"

"Oh yes!" she said; "I have the desire, but should I then have the faculty? My son will be, I hope a magistrate,

worthy of his two grandfathers, and he will leave me. What should I do then? If God restores me to life I will

dedicate that life to Himoh! after giving you all you need of it," she cried, looking tenderly at her father

and son. "There are moments, my dear father, when the ideas of Monsieur de Maistre work within me

"That brave Polish general, my great grandfather, took part, though very innocently, in the partition of

"How can I help it, papa? my sufferings are infernal; they give me a horror of life, they disgust me with

myself. Well, I ask you, have I done anything to deserve them? Such diseases are not a mere derangement of

"Sing that national air your poor mother used to sing; Monsieur Godefroid wants to hear it; I have told him

about your voice," said the old man, endeavoring to distract her mind from the current of such thoughts.

Vanda began, in a low and tender voice, to sing a Polish song which held Godefroid dumb with admiration

and also with sadness. This melody, which greatly resembles the long drawn out melancholy airs of Brittany,

is one of those poems which vibrate in the heart long after the ear has heard them. As he listened, Godefroid

looked at Vanda, but he could not endure the ecstatic glance of that fragment of a woman, partially insane,

and his eyes wandered to two cords which hung one on each side of the canopy of the bed.

"Ah ha!" laughed Vanda, noticing his look, "do you want to know what those cords are for?"

"Vanda!" said her father, hastily, "calm yourself, my daughter. See! here comes tea. That, monsieur," he

continued, turning to Godefroid, "is rather a costly affair. My daughter cannot rise, and therefore it is difficult

to change her sheets. Those cords are fastened to pulleys; by slipping a square of leather beneath her and

drawing it up by the four corners with these pulleys, we are able to make her bed without fatigue to her or to

Happily, Auguste now came in with a teapot, which he placed on a table, together with the Sevres teaset;

then he brought cakes and sandwiches and cream. This sight diverted his mother's mind from the nervous

"See, Vanda, here is Nathan's new novel. If you wake in the night you will have something to read."

"Oh! delightful! 'La Perle de Dol;' it must be a lovestory,Auguste, I have something to tell you! I'm to

"See how he loves his mother!" cried Vanda. "Come and kiss me, my kitten. No, it is not your grandfather

you are to thank, but monsieur, who is good enough to lend me one. I am to have it tomorrow. How are they

Godefroid, at a sign from the old man, explained an accordion at length, while sipping the tea which Auguste

About halfpast ten o'clock he retired, weary of beholding the desperate struggle of the son and father,

admiring their heroism, and the daily, hourly patience with which they played their double parts, each equally

"Well," said Monsieur Bernard, who followed him home, "you now see, monsieur, the life I live. I am like a

thief, on the watch all the time. A word, a gesture might kill my daughter; a mere gewgaw less than she is

accustomed to seeing about her would reveal all to that mind that can penetrate everything."

"Monsieur," replied Godefroid, "on Monday next Halpersohn shall pronounce upon your daughter. He has

returned. I myself doubt the possibility of any science being able to revive that body."

"Oh! I don't expect that," cried the father; "all I ask is that her life be made supportable. I felt sure, monsieur,

of your sympathy, and I see that you have indeed comprehended everythingAh! there's the attack coming

on!" he exclaimed, as the sound of a cry came through the partition; "she went beyond her strength."

At eight o'clock the next morning Godefroid knocked at the door of the celebrated Polish doctor. He was

shown by a footman to the first floor of a little house Godefroid had been examining while the porter was

Happily, Godefroid's early arrival saved him the annoyance of being kept waiting. He was, he supposed, the

first comer. From a very plain and simple antechamber he passed into a large study, where he saw an old man

in a dressinggown smoking a long pipe. The dressinggown, of black bombazine, shiny with use, dated

"What can I do for you?" said the Jewish doctor, "for I see you are not ill." And he fixed on his visitor a look

which had the inquisitive, piercing expression of the eyes of a Polish Jew, eyes which seem to have ears of

Halpersohn was, to Godefroid's great astonishment, a man of fiftysix years of age, with small bowlegs, and

a broad, powerful chest and shoulders. There was something oriental about the man, and his face in its youth

must have been very handsome. The nose was Hebraic, long and curved like a Damascus blade. The

forehead, truly Polish, broad and noble, but creased like a bit of crumpled paper, resembled that given by the

old Italian masters to Saint Joseph. The eyes, of a seagreen, and circled, like those of parrots, with a gray

and wrinkled membrane, expressed slyness and avarice in an eminent degree. The mouth, gashed into the

face like a wound, added to the already sinister expression of the countenance all the sarcasm of distrust.

That pale, thin face, for Halpersohn's whole person was remarkably thin, surmounted by illkept gray hair,

ended in a long and very thick, black beard, slightly touched with white, which hid fully half the face, so that

nothing was really seen of it but the forehead, nose, eyes, cheekbones, and mouth.

This friend of the revolutionist Lelewel wore a black velvet cap which came to a point on the brow, and took

The question of the physician (who has since become so celebrated, as much for his genius as for his avarice)

The answer to this mental question was on the doctor's table and fireplace. Godefroid thought he was the first

to arrive; he was really the last. Preceding clients had left large offerings behind them; among them

Godefroid noticed piles of twenty and fortyfranc gold pieces and two notes of a thousand francs each. Could

that be the product of one morning? He doubted it, and suspected the Pole of intentional trickery. Perhaps the

grasping but infallible doctor took this method of showing his clients, mostly rich persons, that gold must be

Moses Halpersohn was, undoubtedly, largely paid, for he cured, and he cured precisely those desperate

diseases which science declares incurable. It is not known in Europe that the Slav races possess many secrets.

They have a collection of sovereign remedies, the fruits of their connection with the Chinese, Persians,

Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars. Certain peasant women in Poland, who pass for witches, cure insanity radically

with the juice of herbs. A vast body of observation, not codified, exists in Poland on the effects of certain

plants, and certain barks of trees reduced to powder, which are transmitted from father to son, and family to

Halpersohn, who for five or six years was called a quack on account of his powders and herb medicines, had

the innate science of a great physician. Not only had he studied much and observed much, but he had

travelled in every part of Germany, Russia, Persia, and Turkey, whence he had gathered many a traditionary

secret; and as he knew chemistry he became a living volume of those wonderful recipes scattered among the

wise women, or, as the French call them, the bonnes femmes, of every land to which his feet had gone,

It must not be thought that the scene in "The Talisman" where Saladin cures the King of England is a fiction.

Halpersohn possesses a silk purse which he steeps in water till the liquid is slightly colored; certain fevers

yield immediately when the patient has drunk the prescribed dose of it. The virtue of plants, according to his

man, is infinite, and the cure of the worst diseases possible. Nevertheless, he, like the rest of his professional

brethren, stops short at certain incomprehensibilities. Halpersohn approved of the invention of homoeopathy,

more on account of its therapeutics than for its medical system; he was corresponding at this time with

Hedenius of Dresden, Chelius of Heidelburg, and the celebrated German doctors, all the while holding his

The frame was in keeping with this embodiment of a Rembrandt picture. The study, hung with a paper

imitating green velvet, was shabbily furnished with a green divan, the cover of which was threadbare. A

wornout green carpet was on the floor. A large armchair of black leather, intended for clients, stood before

the window, which was draped with green curtains. A desk chair of Roman shape, made in mahogany and

Between the fireplace and the long table at which he wrote, a common iron safe stood against the wall, and

on it was a clock of Viennese granite, surmounted by a group in bronze representing Cupid playing with

Death, the present of a great German sculptor whom Halpersohn had doubtless cured. On the mantelshelf

was a vase between two candlesticks, and no other ornament. On either side of the divan were cornerbuffets

of ebony, holding plates and dishes, and Godefroid also noticed upon them two silver bowls, glass decanters,

This simplicity, which amounted almost to bareness struck Godefroid, whose quick eye took it all in as he

"Monsieur, I am, as you say, perfectly well myself; I have come on behalf of a woman to whom you were

asked to pay a visit some time ago. She lives on the boulevard du MontParnasse."

"Ah! yes; the lady who has sent her son here several times. Well, monsieur, let her come here to me."

"Come here!" repeated Godefroid, indignantly. "Monsieur, she cannot even be moved from her bed to a chair;

"You are not a physician, I suppose?" said the Jewish doctor, with a singular grimace which made his face

"If the Baron de Nucingen sent word that he was ill and wanted you to visit him, would you reply, 'Let him

"I should go to him," said the Jew, coldly, spitting into a Dutch pot made of mahogany and full of sand.

"You would go," said Godefroid, gently, "because the Baron de Nucingen has two millions a year, and"

"Well, monsieur, you must go to the lady on the boulevard du Mont Parnasse for the same reason. Without

possessing the fortune of the Baron du Nucingen, I am here to tell you that you may yourself put a price upon

this lady's cure, or upon your attendance if you fail; I am ready to pay it in advance. But perhaps, monsieur,

as you are a Polish refugee and, I believe, a communist, the lady's parentage may induce you to make a

sacrifice to Poland. She is the granddaughter of Colonel Tarlowski, the friend of Poniatowski."

"Monsieur, you came here to ask me to cure that lady, and not to give me advice. In Poland I am a Pole; in

Paris I am Parisian. Every man does good in his own way; the greed with which I am credited is not without

its motive. The wealth I am amassing has its destination; it is a sacred one. I sell health; the rich can afford to

purchase it, and I make them pay. The poor have their doctors. If I had not a purpose in view I would not

practise medicine. I live soberly and I spend my time in rushing hither and thither; my natural inclination is to

be lazy, and I used to be a gambler. Draw your conclusions, young man. You are too young still to judge old

"From what you say," went on the doctor, "the lady in question is the granddaughter of that imbecile who had

no courage but that of fighting, and who took part in delivering over his country to Catherine II?"

"Well, be at her house Monday next at three o'clock," said Halpersohn, taking out a notebook in which he

wrote a few words. "You will give me then two hundred francs; and if I promise to cure the patient you will

give me three thousand. I am told," he added, "that the lady has shrunk to almost nothing."

"Monsieur, if the most celebrated doctors in Paris are to be believed, it is a neurotic case of so extraordinary a

Godefroid withdrew, after bowing to the man who seemed to him as odd as he was extraordinary. Nothing

about him indicated a physician, not even the study, in which the most notable object was the iron safe, made

Godefroid had just time to get to the passage Vivienne before the shops closed for the day, and there he

bought a superb accordion, which he ordered sent at once to Monsieur Bernard, giving the address.

From the doctor's house Godefroid made his way to the rue Chanoinesse, passing along the quai des

Augustins, where he hoped to find one of the shops of the commissionpublishers open. He was fortunate

enough to do so, and had a long talk with a young clerk on books of jurisprudence.

When he reached the rue Chanoinesse, he found Madame de la Chanterie and her friends just returning from

high mass; in reply to the look she gave him Godefroid made her a significant sign with his head.

"No," she replied, "not this Sunday; you will not see him till a week from todayunless you go where he

"Madame," said Godefroid in a low voice, "you know he doesn't intimidate me as these gentlemen do; I

"Oh you! I can tell you all; and I have a great deal to tell. For my first essay I have found a most

extraordinary misfortune; a cruel mingling of pauperism and the need for luxuries; also scenes of a sublimity

"Nature, especially moral nature, is always greater than art, just as God is greater than his creatures. But

come," said madame de la Chanterie, "tell me the particulars of your first trip into worlds unknown to you."

Monsieur Nicolas and Monsieur Joseph (for the Abbe de Veze had remained a few moments in NotreDame)

left Madame de la Chanterie alone with Godefroid, who, being still under the influence of the emotions he

had gone through the night before, related even the smallest details of his story with the force and ardor and

action of a first experience of such a spectacle and its attendant persons and things. His narrative had a great

success; for the calm and gentle Madame de la Chanterie wept, accustomed as she was to sound the depths of

"I would like to do a great deal more," said Godefroid; "inasmuch as this family is the first that has shown me

the pleasures of charity, I should like to obtain for that splendid old man a full return for his great book. I

don't know if you have confidence enough in my capacity to give me the means of undertaking such an affair.

From information I have obtained, it will cost nine thousand francs to manufacture an edition of fifteen

hundred copies, and their selling value will be twentyfour thousand francs. But as we should have to pay off

the three thousand and some hundred francs due to Barbet, it would be an outlay of twelve thousand francs to

risk. Oh! madame, if you only knew what bitter regrets I feel for having dissipated my little fortune! The

spirit of charity has appeared to me; it fills me with the ardor of an initiate. I wish to renounce the world, I

long to embrace the life of these gentlemen and be worthy of you. Many a time during the last two days I

have blessed the chance that brought me to this house. I will obey you in all things until you judge me fit to

"Then," said Madame de la Chanterie, after reflecting for a time, "listen to me, for I have important things to

tell. You have been allured, my child, by the poesy of misfortune. Yes, misfortunes are often poetical; for, as

I think, poesy is a certain effect on the sensibilities, and sorrows affect the sensibilities,life is so intense in

"Yes, madame, I know that I have been gripped by the demon of curiosity. But how could I help it? I have

not yet acquired the habit of penetrating to the heart of these great misfortunes; I cannot go among them with

the calmness of your three soldiers of the Lord. But, let me tell you, it is since I have recovered from that first

"Listen to me, my dear angel!" said Madame de la Chanterie, who uttered the last three words with a gentle

solemnity that touched the young man strangely. "We have forbidden ourselves absolutely,and we do not

trifle with words here; what is forbidden no longer occupies our minds,we have forbidden ourselves to

enter into any speculations. To print a book for sale on the chance of profit is a matter of business, and any

operation of that kind would throw us into all the entanglements of commerce. Certainly your scheme seems

to me feasible,even necessary. But do you think it is the first that has offered itself? A score of times, a

hundred times, we have come upon just such ways of saving families, or firms. What would have become of

us if we had taken part in such affairs? We should be merchants. No, our true partnership with misfortune is

not to take the work into our own hands, but to help the unfortunate to work themselves. Before long you will

meet with misfortunes more bitter still than these. Would you then do the same thing,that is, take the

burdens of those unfortunates wholly on yourself? You would soon be overwhelmed. Reflect, too, my dear

child, that for the last year even the Messieurs Mongenod find our accounts too heavy for them. Half your

time would be taken up in merely keeping our books. We have today over two thousand debtors in Paris,

and we must keep the record of their debts. Not that we ask for payment; we simply wait. We calculate that if

half the money we expect is lost, the other half comes back to us, sometimes doubled. Now, suppose your

Monsieur Bernard dies, the twelve thousand francs are probably lost. But if you cure his daughter, if his

grandson is put in the way of succeeding, if he comes, some day, a magistrate, then, when the family is

prosperous, they will remember the debt, and return the money of the poor with usury. Do you know that

more than one family whom we have rescued from poverty, and put upon their feet on the road to prosperity

by loans of money without interest, have laid aside a portion for the poor, and have returned to us the money

loaned doubled, and sometimes tripled? Those are our only speculations. Moreover, reflect that what is now

interesting you so deeply (and you ought to be interested in it), namely, the sale of this lawyer's book,

depends on the value of the work. Have you read it? Besides, though the book may be an excellent one, how

many excellent books remain one, two, three years without obtaining the success they deserve. Alas! how

many crowns of fame are laid upon a grave! I know that publishers have ways of negotiating and realizing

profits which make their business the most hazardous to do with, and the most difficult to unravel, of all the

trades of Paris. Monsieur Joseph can tell you of these difficulties, inherent in the making of books. Thus, you

see, we are sensible; we have experience of all miseries, also of all trades, for we have studied Paris for many

years. The Mongenods have helped us in this; they have been like torches to us. It is through them that we

know how the Bank of France holds the publishing business under constant suspicion; although it is one of

the most profitable trades, it is unsound. As for the four thousand francs necessary to save this noble family

from the horrors of penury,for that poor boy and his grandfather must be fed and clothed properly,I will

give them to you at once. There are sufferings, miseries, wants, which we immediately relieve, without

hesitation, without even asking whom we help; religion, honor, character, are all indifferent to us; but when it

comes to lending money to the poor to assist them in any active form of industry or commerce, then we

require guarantees, with all the sternness of usurers. So you must, my dear child, limit your enthusiasm for

this unhappy family to finding for the father an honest publisher. This concerns Monsieur Joseph. He knows

lawyers, professors, authors of works on jurisprudence; I will speak to him, and next Sunday he will be sure

to have some good advice to give you. Don't feel uneasy; some way will certainly be found to solve the

difficulty. Perhaps it would be well, however, if Monsieur Joseph were to read the lawyer's book. If you think

Godefroid was amazed at the good sense of this woman, whom he had thought controlled by the spirit of

"We must be all that in our business," she replied, with the soft gaiety of a real saint.

"Two thousand debtors! did you say that, madame? two thousand accounts to keep! why, it is immense!"

"Oh! I meant two thousand accounts which rely for liquidation, as I told you, on the delicacy and good

feeling of our debtors; but there are fully three thousand other families whom we help who make us no other

return than thanks to God. This is why we feel, as I told you, the necessity of keeping books ourselves. If you

prove to us your discretion and capacity you shall be, if you like, our accountant. We keep a daybook, a

ledger, a book of current accounts, and a bank book. We have many notes, but we lose a great deal of time

Godefroid, grave and thoughtful, took little part in the general conversation which now followed. He was

stunned by the communication Madame de la Chanterie had just made to him, in a tone which implied that

"Five thousand families assisted!" he kept repeating to himself. "If they were to cost what I am to spend on

This thought was the last expiring movement of the spirit of the world, which had slowly and insensibly

become extinguished in Godefroid. On reflection he saw that the united fortunes of Madame de la Chanterie,

Messieurs Alain, Nicolas, Joseph, and that of Judge Popinot, the gifts obtained through the Abbe de Veze,

and the assistance lent by the firm of Mongenod must produce a large capital; and that this capital, increased

during the last dozen years by grateful returns from those assisted, must have grown like a snowball,

inasmuch as the charitable stewards of it spent so little on themselves. Little by little he began to see clearly

He was preparing at nine o'clock to return on foot to the boulevard du MontParnasse; but Madame de la

Chanterie, fearing the solitude of that neighborhood at a late hour, made him take a cab. When he reached the

house Godefroid heard the sound of an instrument, though the shutters were so carefully closed that not a ray

of light issued through them. As soon as he reached the landing, Auguste, who was probably on the watch for

When Godefroid entered, the patient seemed to him transfigured by the pleasure she felt in making music; her

"I ought to have waited to let you hear the first sounds," she said to Godefroid, "but I flung myself upon the

little organ as a starving man flings himself on food. You have a soul that comprehends me, and I know you

Vanda made a sign to her son, who placed himself in such a way as to press with his foot the pedal which

filled the bellows; and then the invalid, whose fingers had for the time recovered all their strength and agility,

raising her eyes to heaven like Saint Cecilia, played the "Prayer of Moses in Egypt," which her son had

bought for her and which she had learned by heart in a few hours. Godefroid recognized in her playing the

same quality as in Chopin's. The soul was satisfied by divine sounds of which the dominant note was that of

tender melancholy. Monsieur Bernard had received Godefroid with a look that was long a stranger to his

eyes. If tears were not forever dried at their source, withered by such scorching sorrows, that look would have

The old man sat playing with his snuffbox and looking at his daughter in silent ecstasy.

"Tomorrow, madame," said Godefroid, when the music ceased; "tomorrow your fate will be decided. I

bring you good news. The celebrated Halpersohn is coming to see you at three o'clock in the afternoon. He

has promised," added Godefroid in a low voice to Monsieur Bernard, "to tell me the exact truth."

The old man rose, and grasping Godefroid's hand, drew him to a corner of the room beside the fireplace.

"Ah! what a night I shall pass! a definitive decision! My daughter cured or doomed!"

"My child, my child, don't play any more," said the old man; "you will bring on an attack; such a strain upon

He made Auguste take away the instrument and offered a cup of tea to his daughter with the coaxing manner

"What is the doctor like?" she asked, her mind already distracted by the prospect of seeing a new person.

Vanda, like all prisoners, was full of eager curiosity. When the physical phenomena of her malady ceased,

they seemed to betake themselves to the moral nature; she conceived the strangest fancies, the most violent

caprices; she insisted on seeing Rossini, and wept when her father, whom she believed to be all powerful,

Godefroid now gave her a minute account of the Jewish doctor and his study; of which she knew nothing, for

Monsieur Bernard had cautioned Auguste not to tell his mother of his visits to Halpersohn, so much had he

Vanda hung upon Godefroid's words like one fascinated; and she fell into a sort of ecstasy in her passionate

"Poland has produced many singular, mysterious beings," said Monsieur Bernard. "Today, for instance,

besides this extraordinary doctor, we have Hoene Wronski, the enlightened mathematician, the poet

Mickievicz, Towianksi the mystic, and Chopin, whose talent is supernatural. Great national convulsions

"Oh! dear papa; what a man you are! If you would only write down what we hear you say merely to amuse

me you would make your reputation. Fancy, monsieur, my dear old father invents wonderful stories when I

have no novels to read; he often puts me to sleep in that way. His voice lulls me, and he quiets my mind with

his wit. Who can ever reward him? Auguste, my child, you ought for my sake, to kiss the print of your

The young man raised his beautiful moist eyes to his mother, and the look he gave her, full of a

longrepressed compassion, was a poem. Godefroid rose, took the lad's hand, and pressed it.

"Yes, I know that. And for that reason I often reproach myself for harassing them. Come, my dear Auguste,

and kiss your mother. He is a child, monsieur, of whom all mothers might be proud; pure as gold, frank and

honest, a soul without sinbut too passionate a soul, alas! like that of his poor mother. Perhaps God has

fastened me in this bed to keep me from the follies of womenwho have too much heart," she added,

"Adieu, monsieur; and thank your friend for the instrument; tell him it makes the happiness of a poor

"Monsieur," said Godefroid, when they were alone in the latter's room. "I think I may assure you that you

shall not be robbed by that trio of bloodsuckers. I have the necessary sum to free your book, but you must

first show me your written agreement with them. And after that, in order to do still more for you, you must let

me have your work to read,not I myself, of course, I have not knowledge enough to judge of it, but a

former magistrate, a lawyer of eminence and of perfect integrity, who will undertake, according to what he

thinks of the book, to find you an honorable publisher with whom you can make an equitable agreement.

This, however, I will not insist upon. Meantime here are five hundred francs," he added, giving a banknote

to the stupefied old man, "to meet your present needs. I do not ask for any receipt; you will be under

obligations to your own conscience only, and that conscience is not to move you until you have recovered a

"I myself," replied Godefroid, "am nothing; but I serve powerful persons to whom your distress is known,

"No, monsieur," replied Godefroid. "Do not feel uneasy; these persons have no designs upon you, except that

"Ah! monsieur," said Godefroid, hastily; "do not insult the virtue defined by Saint Paul, sacred, catholic

Monsieur Bernard, hearing this answer, began to stride up and down with long steps.

"I accept," he said suddenly, "and I have but one way of thanking you, and that is to offer you my work. The

notes and citations are unnecessary to the magistrate you speak of; and I have still two months' work to do in

arranging them for the press. Tomorrow I will give you the five volumes," he added, offering Godefroid his

"Can I have made a conversion?" thought Godefroid, struck by the new expression which he saw on the old

The next afternoon at three o'clock a cabriolet stopped before the house, and Godefroid saw Halpersohn

getting out of it, wrapped in a monstrous bearskin pelisse. The cold had strengthened during the night, the

The Jewish doctor examined with curious eyes, though furtively, the room in which his client of the day

before received him, and Godefroid detected the suspicious thought which darted from his eyes like the sharp

point of a dagger. This rapid conception of distrust gave Godefroid a cold chill, for he thought within himself

that such a man would be pitiless in all relations; it is so natural to suppose that genius is connected with

"Monsieur," he said, "I see that the simplicity of my room makes you uneasy; therefore you need not be

surprised at my method of proceeding. Here are your two hundred francs, and here, too, are three notes of a

thousand francs each," he added, drawing from his pocket book the money Madame de la Chanterie had

given him to release Monsieur Bernard's book; but in case you still feel doubtful of my solvency I offer you

"Where is the patient?" asked the doctor, rising like a man who knows the value of time.

The Jew examined with a shrewd and suspicious eye the places he passed through, giving them the keen,

rapid glance of a spy; he saw all the horrors of poverty through the door of the room in which the grandfather

and the grandson lived; for, unfortunately, Monsieur Bernard had gone in to change his clothes before

entering his daughter's room, and in his haste to open the outer door to the doctor, he had forgotten to close

He bowed in a stately manner to Halpersohn, and opened the door of his daughter's room cautiously.

Then he stood aside to allow Halpersohn, who kept on his bearskin pelisse, to pass him. The Jew was

evidently surprised at the luxury of the room, which in this quarter, and more especially in this house, was an

anomaly; but his surprise only lasted for an instant, for he had seen among German and Russian Jews many

instances of the same contrast between apparent misery and hoarded wealth. As he walked from the door to

the bed he kept his eye on the patient, and the moment he reached her he said in Polish:

"Was she very fair?" said Halpersohn, showing a slight impatience at being interrupted.

"Here is her portrait," said Monsieur Bernard, unhooking from the wall a handsome frame which enclosed

Halpersohn felt the head and handled the hair of the patient while he looked at the portrait of Vanda

"Relate to me the symptoms of your illness," he said, placing himself on the sofa and looking fixedly at

Vanda during the twenty minutes the history, given alternately by the father and daughter, lasted.

"Ah! good!" he cried, rising; "I will answer for the cure. Mind, I do not say that I can restore the use of her

legs; but cured of the disease, that she shall be. Only, I must have her in a private hospital under my own

"I will answer for her," said Halpersohn, curtly; "but I will answer for her only on those conditions. She will

have to exchange her present malady for another still more terrible, which may last a year, six months at the

very least. You may come and see her at the hospital, since you are her father."

"Certain," repeated the Jew. "Madame has in her body an element, a vitiated fluid, the national disease, and it

must be eliminated. You must bring her to me at Challot, rue BasseSaintPierre, private hospital of Doctor

As he said the word in a curt tone he was already at the door; Godefroid rejoined him on the staircase. The

"Besides the three thousand francs, the cost will be fifteen francs a day, payable three months in advance."

"Very good, monsieur. And," continued Godefroid, putting one foot on the step of the cabriolet, into which

"I will answer for it," said the Jewish doctor. "Are you in love with the lady?"

"You must not repeat what I am about to say to you; I only say it to prove to you that I am certain of a cure. If

"For the last seventeen years she has been a victim to the element in her system called plica polonica,[*]

which has produced all these ravages. I have seen more terrible cases than this. Now, I alone in the present

day know how to bring this disease to a crisis, and force it outward so as to obtain a chance to cure itfor it

cannot always be cured. You see, monsieur, that I am disinterested. If this lady were of great importance, a

Baronne de Nucingen, or any other wife or daughter of a modern Croesus, this cure would bring me one

hundredtwo hundred thousand francs; in short, anything I chose to ask for it. However, it is only a trifling

[*] Balzac's description of plica polonica does not agree with that given in English medical dictionaries and

cyclopedias. But as the book was written at Wierschovnia, Poland, in 1847, when he was attended by a

celebrated Polish physician, and as, moreover, he was always so scrupulously accurate in his descriptions, it

is fair to suppose that he knew of some form of the disease other than that given in the books. His account

probably applies to the period before it takes the visible form described in the books.

"Bah! she'll seem to be dying, but she won't die. There's life enough in her to last a hundred years, when the

disease is out of her system. Come, Jacques, drive on! quick,rue de Monsieur! quick!" he said to his man.

"Who is that queer man in a bearskin?" asked Madame Vauthier, whom nothing escaped; "is it true, what the

"You made a great mistake in not putting yourself on my side," said Godefroid, returning slowly to the house;

"you would have made more out of me than you will ever get from Barbet and Metivier; from whom, mark

"I am not for them particularly," said Madame Vauthier, shrugging her shoulders; "Monsieur Barbet is my

It required two days' persuasion to induce Monsieur Bernard to separate from his daughter and take her to

Chaillot. Godefroid and the old man made the trip walking on each side of the litter, canopied with blue and

white striped linen, in which was the dear patient, partly bound to a mattress, so much did her father dread the

possible convulsions of a nervous attack. They started at three o'clock and reached their destination at five

just as evening was coming on. Godefroid paid the sum demanded for three months' board in advance, being

careful to obtain a receipt for the money. When he went back to pay the bearers of the litter, he was followed

by Monsieur Bernard, who took from beneath the mattress a bulky package carefully sealed up, and gave it to

"One of these men will fetch you a cab," said the old man; "for you cannot carry these four volumes under

your arm. That is my book; give it to your reader; he may keep it the whole of the coming week. I shall stay

at least that time in this quarter; for I cannot leave my daughter in such total abandonment. I trust my

grandson; he can take care of our rooms; especially if you keep an eye on him. If I were what I once was I

would ask you the name of my critic, the former magistrate you spoke of; there were but few of them whom I

"Oh, there's no mystery about it!" said Godefroid, interrupting Monsieur Bernard. "Now that you have shown

this entire confidence in trusting me with your book, I will tell you that your censor is the former president,

"Oh, yes!of the Royal Court of Paris. Take him the book; he is one of the noblest characters of the present

day. He and the late Popinot, a judge of the Lower Court, were both worthy of the days of the old

Parliaments. All my fears, if I had any, are dissipated. Where does he live? I should like to go and thank him

"You will find him in the rue Chanoinesse, under the name of Monsieur Joseph. I am going there now. Where

"Auguste will give it to you," said the old man, reentering the courtyard of the hospital.

A cab was now brought up by the porter, and Godefroid jumped into it, promising the coachman a good

pourboire if he would get him to the rue Chanoinesse in good time, for he wanted to dine there.

Half an hour after Vanda's departure, three men dressed in black, whom Madame Vauthier let into the house

by the door on the rue NotreDame des Champs, filed up the staircase, accompanied by their female Judas,

and knocked gently at the door of Monsieur Bernard's lodging. As it happened to be a Thursday, Auguste was

"These are the rooms of Monsieur Bernard,that is, Monsieur le baron, are they not?"

"You know very well, young man, what we want! We are informed that your grandfather has left this house

with a covered litter. That's not surprising; he had the right to do so. But I am the sheriff, and I have come to

seize everything he has left. On Monday he received a summons to pay three thousand francs, with interest

and costs, to Monsieur Metivier, under pain of arrest for debt duly notified to him, and like an old stager who

is up to the tricks of his own trade, he has walked off just in time. However, if we can't catch him, his

"Here are the stamped papers your grandpapa didn't choose to take," said Madame Vauthier, thrusting three

"Remain here, madame," said the sheriff; "we shall make you legal guardian of the property. The law gives

"You shall not go into my mother's room!" said the young lad, in a threatening voice, springing between the

"No resistance, young man; you are not master here," said the sheriff. "We shall draw up the procesverbal,

A conference now took place between the sheriff, the other men, and Vauthier, by which Auguste discovered,

although they spoke in a low voice, that his grandfather's manuscripts were what they chiefly wanted. On

"Go in," he said, "but take care to do no injury. You will be paid tomorrow morning."

Then he went off weeping into the lair, seized his grandfather's notes and stuck them into the stove, in which,

The thing was done so rapidly that the sheriffa sly, keen fellow, worthy of his clients Barbet and

Metivierfound the lad weeping in his chair when he entered the wretched room, after assuring himself that

Though it is not permissible to seize books or manuscripts for debt, the bill of sale which Monsieur Bernard

had made of his work justified this proceeding. It was, however, easy to oppose various delays to this seizure,

and Monsieur Bernard, had he been there, would not have failed to do so. For that reason the whole affair had

been conducted slyly. Madame Vauthier had not attempted to give the writs to Monsieur Bernard; she meant

to have flung them into the room on entering behind the sheriff's men, so to give the appearance of their

The procesverbal of the seizure took an hour to write down; the sheriff omitted nothing, and declared that

the value of the property seized was sufficient to pay the debt. As soon as he and his men had departed,

Auguste took the writs and rushed to the hospital to find his grandfather. The sheriff having told him that

Madame Vauthier was now responsible, under heavy penalties, for the safety of the property, he could leave

The idea of his grandfather being dragged to prison for debt drove the poor lad, if not exactly crazy, at any

rate as crazy as youth becomes under one of those dangerous and fatal excitements in which all powers

ferment at once, and lead as often to evil actions as to heroic deeds. When he reached the rue

BasseSaintPierre, the porter told him that he did not know what had become of the father of the lady who

had arrived that afternoon; the orders of Monsieur Halpersohn were to admit no one to see her for the next

This answer brought Auguste's exasperation to a crisis. He returned to the boulevard du MontParnasse,

turning over in his mind the wildest and most extravagant plans of action. He reached home at halfpast eight

o'clock, half famished, and so exhausted with hunger and distress that he listened to Madame Vauthier when

she asked him to share her supper, which happened to be a mutton stew with potatoes. The poor lad fell half

Persuaded by the wheedling and honeyed words of the old vulture, he replied to a few questions about

Godefroid which she adroitly put to him, letting her discover that it was really her other lodger who was to

pay his grandfather's debts the next day, and also that it was to him they owed the improvement in their

condition during the past week. The widow listened to these confidences with a dubious air, plying Auguste

About ten o'clock a cab stopped before the house, and Madame Vauthier looking out exclaimed:

Auguste at once took the key of his apartment and went up to meet the protector of his family; but he found

Godefroid's face and manner so changed that he hesitated to address him until, generous lad that he was, the

The cause of this change and of the sternness in Godefroid's face was an event which had just taken place in

the rue Chanoinesse. When the initiate arrived there he found Madame de la Chanterie and her friends

assembled in the salon awaiting dinner; and he instantly took Monsieur Joseph apart to give him the four

volumes on "The Spirit of Modern Laws." Monsieur Joseph took the voluminous manuscript to his room and

returned for dinner; then, after sharing in the conversation for part of the evening, he went back to his room,

Godefroid was much astonished when Manon came to him soon after Monsieur Joseph's retirement and asked

if he would at once go up and speak to that gentleman. He went up, conducted by Manon, and was unable to

pay any heed to the apartment (which he had never before entered) so amazed was he by the agitated look

"Do you know," asked Monsieur Joseph, once more a judge, "who the author of this work is?"

"He is Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid; "I know him only under that name. I did not open the package."

"True," said Monsieur Joseph, as if to himself, "I broke the seals myself. You have not tried to find out

"No, I only know that he made a lovematch with the daughter of General Tarlowski; that the daughter is

named after the mother, Vanda; the grandson is called Auguste; and I have seen a portrait of Monsieur

"Here, read that," said Monsieur Joseph, pointing to the titlepage of the manuscript, written probably in

Formerly attorneygeneral to the Royal Court of Rouen. Grand officer of the Legion of honor.

"Ha! the slayer of Madame's daughter! of the Chevalier du Vissard! the man who condemned her to twenty

years' imprisonment!" said Godefroid, in a feeble voice. His legs gave way under him, and he dropped into a

"This matter, my dear Godefroid," resumed Monsieur Joseph, "concerns us all. You have done your part;

leave the rest to us. I beg you to have no more to do with it; go and fetch the things you have left behind you.

Don't say a word of all this. Practise absolute discretion. Tell the Baron de Bourlac to address himself to me.

Godefroid left him, took a cab, and went back as fast as he could to the boulevard du MontParnasse, filled

with horror as he remembered that indictment signed with Bourlac's name, the bloody drama ending on the

scaffold, and Madame de la Chanterie's imprisonment at Bicetre. He understood now the abandonment in

which this former attorneygeneral, another FourquierTinville in the public mind, was ending his days, and

"May Monsieur Joseph avenge her terribly!" he thought. As he uttered the wish in his own mind, he saw

"My good friend, such a dreadful misfortune has overtaken us that I am almost mad. Wretches have come

here and seized all my mother's property, and they are going to put my grandfather in prison. But it is not on

account of those misfortunes that I come to implore you," said the lad, with Roman pride; "it is to ask you to

"They came here to seize my grandfather's manuscript; and as I think he gave you the book itself I want you

to take the notes, for Madame Vauthier will not let me carry anything out of the house. Put them with the

While the lad went back to his own rooms, returning immediately, Godefroid reflected that the poor child was

guilty of no crime, and that he ought not to put despair into that young heart by speaking of his grandfather

and of the punishment for his savage political actions that had overtaken his old age. He therefore took the

"My mother is the Baronne de Mergi; my father was the son of the president of the Royal Court at Rouen."

"Ah!" said Godefroid; "then your grandfather married his daughter to the son of the famous president Mergi."

"Now, my little friend, leave me," said Godefroid. He went with young Mergi to the landing, and called to

"Mere Vauthier," he said, "you can let my rooms. I shall not come back any more."

"You're a pretty fellow! that's the agent of your grandfather's enemies. He managed this whole business, and

the proof is that, now that the trick is played, he goes off and isn't coming back any more. He has just told me

Auguste flew to the boulevard and ran after the cab shouting so loudly that he finally stopped it.

The youth thought the words were intended as a cruel joke. He sat down in the snow as he saw the cab

disappearing rapidly. Presently he sprang up with momentary vigor, returned to his room and went to bed

The next morning, when the poor boy woke alone in that apartment so lately occupied by his mother and

grandfather, the painful emotions of his cruel position filled his mind. The solitude of his home, where up to

this time every moment had had its duty and its occupation, seemed so hard to bear that he went down to

Madame Vauthier to ask if she had received any news of his grandfather. The woman answered sneeringly

that he knew very well, or he might know, where to find his grandfather; the reason why he had not come in,

she said, was because he had gone to live at the chateau de Clichy. This malicious speech, from the woman

who had coaxed and wheedled him the evening before, put the lad into another frenzy, and he rushed to the

Baron Bourlac had wandered all night round the hospital, where he was refused entrance, and round the

private residence of Dr. Halpersohn from whom he wished, naturally, to obtain an explanation of such

treatment. The doctor did not get home till two in the morning. At halfpast one the old man was at his door;

on being told he was absent, he turned and walked about the grand alley of the Champs Elysees until

halfpast two. When he again went to the house, the porter told him that Monsieur Halpersohn had returned,

The poor father, in despair, wandered along the quay and under the frostladen trees of the Courslareine,

waiting for daylight. At nine o'clock in the morning he again presented himself at the doctor's house,

"Monsieur," replied the doctor, to whose presence he was admitted, "yesterday I told you I would answer for

your daughter's recovery; but today I am responsible for her life and you will readily understand that I must

be the sovereign master in such a case. Yesterday your daughter took a medicine intended to bring out her

disease, the plica polonica; until that horrible disease shows itself on the surface you cannot see her. I will not

allow excitement or any mistake of management to carry off my patient and your daughter. If you positively

insist on seeing her, I shall call a consultation of three physicians, so as to relieve myself of responsibility, for

The old man, worn out with fatigue, dropped on a chair; but he rose immediately, saying:

"Forgive me, monsieur. I have spent the night waiting for you in dreadful distress of mind. You cannot know

to what degree I love my daughter; I have nursed her for fifteen years hovering between life and death, and

The baron left the room staggering like a drunken man. The doctor followed and supported him by the arm

An hour later Auguste de Mergi entered the doctor's room. On questioning the porter at the hospital the

unhappy lad heard that his grandfather had been refused an entrance and had gone away to find Monsieur

Halpersohn, who could probably give information about him. As Auguste entered the doctor's study

Halpersohn was breakfasting on a cup of chocolate and a glass of water. He did not disturb himself at the

young man's entrance, but went on sopping his bread in the chocolate; for he never ate anything for breakfast

"Well, young man," he said, glancing at Vanda's son, "so you have come, too, to find out about your

Auguste was standing near the table on which lay several banknotes among a pile of gold louis. Under the

circumstances in which the unhappy boy was placed the temptation was stronger than his principles, solid as

they were. He saw a means of saving his grandfather and the fruits of almost a lifetime of toil. He yielded.

The fascination was rapid as thought; and it was justified to the child's mind by the idea of selfdevotion. "I

destroy myself, but I save my mother and my grandfather," he thought. Under the strain put upon his reason

by this criminal temptation he acquired, like madmen, a singular and momentary dexterity.

Halpersohn, an experienced observer, had divined, retrospectively, the life of the old man and that of the lad

and of the mother. He felt or perceived the truth; the Baronne de Mergi's remarks had helped to unveil it to

him; and the result was a feeling of benevolent pity for his new clients. As for respect or admiration, he was

"Well, my dear boy," he replied familiarly, "I am taking care of your mother, and I shall return her to you

young and handsome and perfectly well in health. Here is one of those rare cases in which physicians take an

interest. Besides, through her mother, she is a compatriot of mine. You and your grandfather must for two

At that instant the theft was accomplished. While the doctor was looking at his sopped bread heavy with

chocolate, Auguste snatched four notes and put them into his pocket, as if he were merely putting his hand

"Yes, monsieur," he replied, "I am a baron, and so is my grandfather; he was attorneygeneral under the

"You blush, young man; there's no need to blush for being a poor baron; that's common enough."

"Your grandfather told me he had spent the night in the Champs Elysees; and though I know no palace with

half so fine a ceiling as that of the skies at two o'clock this morning, I assure you it was pretty cold in the

palace where your grandfather passed the night. We don't select the 'Star' inn from choice."

"Has my grandfather been here this morning?" said Auguste, seizing the opportunity to get away. "I thank

you, monsieur, and I will call again, if you will permit me, to ask for news of my mother."

As soon as he was in the street the young baron took a cab to go as rapidly as he could to the sheriff's office,

where he paid his grandfather's debt. The sheriff gave him the papers and a receipted bill of costs, and told

one of his clerks to accompany the young man home and relieve the legal guardian of her functions.

"As Messieurs Barbet and Metivier live in your quarter," he said, "I will tell my young man to carry the

Auguste who did not understand either the terms or the formalities of the law, did exactly as he was told. He

received seven hundred francs change from the four thousand francs he had stolen, and went away with the

clerk. He got back into the cab in a condition of semistupor; for, the result being now obtained, remorse

began; he saw himself dishonored, cursed by his grandfather, whose inflexible nature was wellknown to

him, and he felt that his mother would surely die if she knew him guilty. All nature changed for him. He was

hot; he did not see the snow; the houses looked like spectres flitting past him.

By the time he reached home the young baron had decided on his course which was certainly that of an

honest man. He went to his mother's room, took the gold snuffbox set with diamonds given to his

grandfather by the Emperor, and wrapped it in a parcel with the seven hundred francs and the following

letter, which required several rough copies before it was satisfactory. Then he directed the whole to Doctor

Monsieur,The fruits of twenty years of my grandfather's toil were about to be seized by usurers, who even

threatened to put him in prison. Three thousand three hundred francs were enough to save him. Seeing all that

money on your table, I could not resist the happiness of freeing my grandfather from his danger. I borrowed,

without your consent, four thousand francs of you; but as three thousand three hundred were all that was

necessary, I send the other seven hundred in money, together with a gold snuffbox set with diamonds, given

to my grandfather by the Emperor, the value of which will probably cover the whole sum.

In case you do not believe in the honor of him who will forever regard you as a benefactor, I pray you to keep

silence about an act which would be quite unjustifiable under other circumstances; for by so doing you will

save my grandfather's life, just as you are saving my mother's life; and I shall be forever

About halfpast two o'clock in the afternoon, Auguste, who went himself as far as the Champs Elysees, sent

the package from there by a street messenger to Doctor Halpersohn's house; then he walked slowly

homeward by the pont de Jena, the Invalides, and the boulevards, relying on Halpersohn's generosity.

The Polish doctor had meanwhile discovered the theft, and he instantly changed his opinion of his clients. He

now thought the old man had come to rob him, and being unable to succeed, had sent the boy. He doubted the

rank they had claimed, and went straight to the police office where he lodged a complaint, requesting that

The prudence with which the law proceeds seldom allows it to move as rapidly as complainants desire; but

about three o'clock of that day a commissary of police, accompanied by agents who kept watch outside the

house, was questioning Madame Vauthier as to her lodgers, and the widow was increasing, without being

When Nepomucene saw the police agents stationed outside the house, he thought they had come to arrest the

old man, and as he was fond of Monsieur Auguste, he rushed to meet Monsieur Bernard, whom he now saw

"Hide yourself, monsieur!" he cried, "the police have come to arrest you. The sheriff was here yesterday and

seized everything. Madame Vauthier didn't give you the stamped papers, and she says you'll be in Clichy

Baron Bourlac immediately resolved to go straight to Barbet. The former publisher lived in the rue

SaintCatherine d'Enfer, and it took him a quarter of an hour to reach the house.

"Ah! I suppose you have come to get that bill of sale," said Barbet, replying to the salutation of his victim.

And, to Baron Bourlac's great astonishment, he held out the document, which the baron took, saying,

"Haven't you been home for two days?" asked Barbet. "But an old magistrate ought to know what a

Hearing that remark, the baron bowed coldly to Barbet and returned home, thinking that the policemen whom

Nepomucene had pointed out must have come for the two impecunious authors on the upper floor. He walked

slowly, lost in vague apprehensions; for, in spite of the explanation he gave himself, Nepomucene's words

came back, and seemed to him more and more obscure and inexplicable. Was it possible that Godefroid had

The old man walked mechanically along the rue NotreDame des Champs, and entered the house by the little

"Oh, monsieur, come quick! they are taking Monsieur Auguste to prison! They arrested him on the

The old man bounded like a tiger, rushed through the house with the speed of an arrow, and reached the door

on the boulevard in time to see his grandson getting into a hackneycoach with three men.

"Monsieur, I am the Baron Bourlac, formerly attorneygeneral," he said to the commissary of police, whose

"Monsieur, if you are Baron Bourlac, two words will be enough. I have just examined this young man, and he

"Grandpapa, I sent him as security your diamond snuffbox. I did it to save you from going to prison."

"Unhappy boy! what have you done? The diamonds are false!" cried the baron; "I sold the real ones three

The commissary of police and his agents looked at each other. That look, full of many things, was intercepted

"Monsieur," he said to the commissary, "you need not feel uneasy; I shall go myself to the prefect; but you

are witness to the fact that I kept my grandson ignorant of the loss of the diamonds. Do your duty; but I

implore you, in the name of humanity, put that lad in a cell by himself; I will go to the prison. To which one

"The fact is that the municipal judge and I doubted if it were possible that you and your grandson could be

guilty. We thought, and the doctor, too, that some scoundrels had taken your name."

"Did he? I knew nothing of that. I have just returned home, and have not seen my grandson for two days."

"The writs he has shown me and the examination explain everything," said the commissary of police. "I see

the cause of the crime. Monsieur, I ought by rights to arrest you as accomplice to your grandson; for your

answers confirm the allegations in Doctor Halpersohn's complaint. But these papers, which I here return to

you," holding out to the old man a bundle of papers, "do prove you to be Baron Bourlac. Nevertheless, you

must hold yourself ready to appear before Monsieur Marest, the judge of the Municipal Court who has

cognizance of the case. As for your grandson, I will speak to the procureur du roi, and we will take all the

care of him that is due to the grandson of a former judge,the victim, no doubt, of youthful error. But the

complaint has been made, the delinquent admits his guilt, I have drawn up the procesverbal, and served the

warrant of arrest; I cannot go back on that. As for the incarceration, I will put him in the Conciergerie."

With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the hollows round the trees of the boulevard.

The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up, together with Madame Vauthier. The old

man was carried to his room, and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue

Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two agents caught him.

"Come, young man, be calm," said the commissary of police; "you have done wrong, but it may not be

"Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn't had anything to ear for twentyfour hours?"

He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear of one of his agents, who got out and ran

When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him only under that name) had a high

fever of great intensity. After hearing from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis

(related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain the next morning, at SaintJacques du

HautPas, of the present state of affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street

Godefroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard du MontParnasse the night before,

the notes confided to him by Auguste, and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first

The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her neophyte that he should, if his resolution

still held good, be put to work at once. Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets of the society,

worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod,

who came every Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and encouragement.

"You are," he said, when the books were all in order and the accounts audited, "a precious acquisition to the

saints among whom you live. Two or three hours a day will now suffice to keep the current accounts in order,

and you will have plenty of surplus time to help the work in other ways, if you still have the vocation you

It was now July, 1838. During the time that had elapsed since his opening attempt on the boulevard du

MontParnasse, Godefroid, eager to prove himself worthy of his friends, had refrained from asking any

question relating to Baron Bourlac. Not hearing a single word on the subject, and finding no record of any

transaction concerning it in the accounts, he regarded the silence maintained about the enemy of Madame de

la Chanterie and his family either as a test to which he himself was subjected, or as a proof that the friends of

Some two months after he had left Madame Vauthier's lodgings he turned his steps when out for a walk

towards the boulevard du MontParnasse, where he came upon the widow herself, and asked for news of the

"Just as if I knew what has become of them!" she replied. "Two days after your departurefor it was you,

slyboots, who got the affair away from my proprietorsome men came here and rid me of that arrogant old

fool and all his belongings. Bless me! if they didn't move everything out within twentyfour hours; and as

close as wax they were too; not a word would they say to me. I think he went off to Algiers with his rogue of

a grandson; for Nepomucene, who had a fancy for that young thief, being no better himself, couldn't find him

at the Conciergerie. I dare say Nepomucene knows where he is, though, for he, too, has run away. That's what

it is to bring up foundlings! that's how they reward you for all your trouble, leaving you in the lurch! I haven't

yet been able to get a man in his place, and as the quarter is looking up the house is full, and I am worked to

Godefroid would never have known more about Baron Bourlac and his family if it had not been for one of

In the month of September he was walking down the great avenue of the Champs Elysees, thinking, as he

"I might," thought he, "go and see him and ask if he ever cured Bourlac's daughter. What a voice, what

When he reached the Rondpoint Godefroid crossed it quickly, on account of the many carriages that were

passing rapidly. As he reached the other side in haste he knocked against a young man with a lady on his arm.

Auguste was so welldressed, and looked so dandified and handsome and so proud of giving his arm to a

pretty woman, that if it had not been for the youth's voice and the memories that were just then in his own

Hearing those words in the celestial notes of Vanda's enchanting voice, Godefroid stopped short on the spot

"Yes," she said. "Why have you not been to see us? Perhaps it was well you didn't;" she added; "my hair

came off; this that you see is a wig; but the doctor assures me it will grow again. Oh! how many things we

have to tell each other! Come and dine with us. Oh! your accordion! oh! monsieur,"she put her

"I shall keep it all my life," she went on, "and my son will preserve it as a relic after me. My father has

searched all Paris for you. And he is also in search of his unknown benefactors; he will grieve himself to

death if you do not help him to discover them. Poor father! he is gnawed by a melancholy I cannot always get

As much attracted by that exquisite voice, now rescued from the silence of the grave, as by a burning

curiosity, Godefroid offered his arm to the hand held out to him by the Baronne de Mergi, who signed to her

son to precede them, charging him with a commission which he seemed to understand.

"I shall not take you far," she said; "we live in the Allee d'Antin, in a pretty little house built in the English

fashion. We occupy it alone; each of us has a floor. Oh! we are so comfortable. My father thinks that you had

"Yes; did you know that on a recommendation made by the minister of public instruction a chair of

international law has been created for papa at the Sorbonne? He begins his first course next November. The

great work on which he has been engaged for so long will be published this month by the firm of Cavalier

and Co., who agree to share the profits with my father; they have already paid him on account thirty thousand

francs. My father bought our house with that money. The minister of justice has awarded me a pension of

twelve hundred francs as the daughter of a former judge; my father has his retiring pension of three thousand,

and his professorship will give him five thousand more. We are so economical that we are almost rich. My

dear Auguste will begin his law studies in two months; but he is already employed in the office of the

attorneygeneral, and is earning twelve hundred francs a year. Ah! Monsieur Godefroid, promise me you will

never speak of that unhappy affair of my poor Auguste. As for me, I bless him every day for his action,

though his grandfather has not yet forgiven him. Yes, his mother blesses him, Halpersohn adores him, but my

"Ah! I recognize your generosity," cried Vanda. "What a heart you have! Your mother must be proud of

"I swear to you that I know nothing of the affair of which you speak," said Godefroid.

"It is possible that you really did not know it?" said Vanda. And she related naively, in terms of admiration

"We may not speak of it before Baron Bourlac," said Godefroid, "tell me now how your son got out of his

"Well," said Vanda, "I told you, I think, that he is now employed by the attorneygeneral, who shows him the

greatest kindness. Auguste was only fortyeight hours in the Conciergerie, where he was put into the

governor's house. The good doctor, who did not receive a noble letter the boy wrote him till late at night,

withdrew his complaint; and, through the influence of a former judge of the Royal Courts, whom my father

has never been able to meet, the attorneygeneral was induced to annul the proceedings in the court. There is

no trace left of the affair except in my heart and my son's conscience, and alas! in his grandfather's mind.

From that day he has treated Auguste as almost a stranger. Only yesterday Halpersohn begged him to forgive

the boy; but my father, who never before refused me anythingme, whom he loves so well!replied: 'You

are the person robbed; you can, and you ought to forgive; but I am responsible for the thief. When I was

attorney general I never pardoned.' 'You'll kill your daughter,' said Halpersohn. My father made no reply

"Well, he is of medium height; rather stout, but active; with a kindly, genial face. It was he who found my

father ill of fever in the house where you knew us and had him brought to that in which we now live. And just

fancy, as soon as my father recovered I was installed there too, in my very own room, just as if I had never

left it. Halpersohn, whom the gentleman captivated, I am sure I don't know how, then told me all the

sufferings my father had endured. Ah, when I think of it! my father and my son often without bread to eat,

and when with me pretending to be rich! even the diamonds in the snuff box sold! Oh, Monsieur Godefroid!

those two beings are martyrs. And so, what can I say to my father? Between him and my son I can take no

part; I can only make return to them in kind by suffering with them, as they once suffered with me."

"Oh! I am sure you know him, I see it in your face," cried Vanda, now at the door of the house.

She seized Godefroid by the hand with the vigor of a nervous woman and dragged him into a salon, the door

"Papa!" she cried, "here is Monsieur Godefroid! and I am certain he knows our benefactors."

Baron Bourlac, whom Godefroid now saw dressed in a manner suitable for a man of his rank and position,

Godefroid made a gesture denying that he shared in this noble vengeance, but the former attorneygeneral

"Ah! monsieur," he said, continuing, "Providence could not be more powerful, love more ingenious,

motherhood more clearsighted than your friends have been for us. I bless the chance that has brought you

here today; for Monsieur Joseph has disappeared forever; he has evaded all the traps I set to discover his

true name and residence. Here, read his last letter. But perhaps you already know it."

Monsieur le Baron Bourlac,The sums which we have spent for you, under the orders of a charitable lady,

amount to fifteen thousand francs. Take note of this, so that you may return that sum either yourself, or

through your descendants, whenever the prosperity of your family will admit of it,for that money is the

money of the poor. When you or your family are able to make this restitution, pay the sum you owe into the

Five crosses formed the mysterious signature of this letter, which Godefroid returned to the baron.

"Ah! monsieur," said the old man; "you do know all; you were sent to me by that mysterious ladytell me

"Her name!" exclaimed Godefroid; "her name! Unhappy man! you must not ask it; never seek to find it out.

Ah! madame," he cried, taking Madame de Mergi's hand; "tell your father, if he values his peace of mind, to

"Well, then, she who saved your daughter," said Godefroid, looking at the old man, "who returns her to you

young and beautiful and fresh and happy, who rescued her from her coffin, she who saved your grandson

from disgrace, and has given you an old age of peace and honor" He stopped short"is a woman whom

you sent innocent to prison for twenty years; to whom, as a magistrate, you did the foulest wrong; whose

sanctity you insulted; whose beautiful daughter you tore from her arms and condemned to the cruellest of all

Godefroid, seeing that Vanda had fallen back half fainting on her chair, rushed into the corridor and from

"If you want your pardon," said Baron Bourlac to his grandson, "follow that man and find out where he

The next morning at eight o'clock, Baron Bourlac knocked at the old yellow door in the rue Chanoinesse, and

asked for Madame de la Chanterie. The portress showed him the portico. Happily it was the breakfast hour.

Godefroid saw the baron, through one of the casements on the stairs, crossing the courtyard; he had just

time to get down into the salon where the friends were all assembled and to cry out:

Madame de la Chanterie, hearing the name, rose; supported by the Abbe de Veze she went to her room.

"You shall not come in, tool of Satan!" cried Manon, recognizing their former prosecutor and preventing his

"Monsieur," said the baron in an agitated voice, recognizing Monsieur Joseph and Godefroid, and bowing to

"You owe us nothing, monsieur;" said the good old Alain; "you owe everything to God."

"You are saints, and you have the calmness of saints;" said the former magistrate; "you will therefore listen to

me. I know that the vast benefits I have received during the last eighteen months have come from the hand of

a person whom I grievously injured in doing my duty. It was fifteen years before I was convinced of her

innocence; and that case is the only one, gentlemen, for which I feel any remorse as to the exercise of my

functions. Listen to me! I have but a short time to live, but I shall lose even that poor remnant of a life, still so

important to my children whom Madame de la Chanterie has saved, unless she will also grant me her pardon.

Yes, I will stay there on my knees on the pavement of NotreDame until she says to me that word. I, who

cannot weep, whom the tortures of my child have dried like stubble, I shall find tears within me to move

The door of Madame de la Chanterie's room opened; the Abbe de Veze glided in like a shadow and said to

He fell on his knees and burst into tears, crying out in a heart rending voice: "In the name of Jesus dying on

the cross, forgive, forgive me, for my daughter has suffered a thousand deaths!"

The old man fell forward on the floor so prone that the agitated spectators thought him dead. At that instant

Madame de la Chanterie appeared like a spectre at the door of her room, against the frame of which she

"In the name of Louis XVI. and MarieAntoinette whom I see on their scaffold, in the name of Madame

Elisabeth, in the name of my daughter and of yours, and for Jesus' sake, I forgive you."

Hearing those words the old man raised his head. "It is the vengeance of angels!" he said.

Monsieur Joseph and Monsieur Nicolas raised him and led him to the courtyard; Godefroid went to fetch a

carriage, and when they put the old man into it Monsieur Nicolas said to him gravely:

"Do not return here, monsieur; the power of God is infinite, but human nature has its limits."

On that day Godefroid was admitted to the order of the Brotherhood of Consolation.

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. The Brotherhood of Consolation is

also known by the title The Seamy Side of History and is referred to by that title in other Addendums.

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass Cesar Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost

Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The

Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Magic Skin A

Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary

Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the

Bonaparte, Napoleon The Vendetta The Gondreville Mystery Colonel Chabert Domestic Peace A Woman of

Bordin The Gondreville Mystery The Commission in Lunacy Jealousies of a Country Town

CinqCygne, Laurence, Comtesse (afterwards Marquise de) The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a

Desplein The Atheist's Mass Cousin Pons Lost Illusions The Thirteen The Government Clerks Pierrette A

Haudry (doctor) Cesar Birotteau The Thirteen A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons

Louis XVIII., LouisStanislasXavier The Chouans The Gondreville Mystery Scenes from a Courtesan's

Life The Ball at Sceaux The Lily of the Valley Colonel Chabert The Government Clerks

Nathan, Raoul Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Secrets

of a Princess A Daughter of Eve Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department A Prince of Bohemia A

Popinot, JeanJules Cesar Birotteau Honorine The Commission in Lunacy The Middle Classes

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de The Chouans Jealousies of a Country Town The Peasantry