A Start in Life ......................................................................................................................................................1

Railroads, in a future not far distant, must force certain industries to disappear forever, and modify several

others, more especially those relating to the different modes of transportation in use around Paris. Therefore

the persons and things which are the elements of this Scene will soon give to it the character of an

archaeological work. Our nephews ought to be enchanted to learn the social material of an epoch which they

will call the "olden time." The picturesque "coucous" which stood on the Place de la Concorde, encumbering

the CourslaReine, coucous which had flourished for a century, and were still numerous in 1830,

scarcely exist in 1842, unless on the occasion of some attractive suburban solemnity, like that of the Grandes

Eaux of Versailles. In 1820, the various celebrated places called the "Environs of Paris" did not all possess a

Nevertheless, the Touchards, father and son, had acquired a monopoly of travel and transportation to all the

populous towns within a radius of fortyfive miles; and their enterprise constituted a fine establishment in the

rue du FaubourgSaintDenis. In spite of their longstanding rights, in spite, too, of their efforts, their

capital, and all the advantages of a powerful centralization, the Touchard coaches ("messageries") found

terrible competition in the coucous for all points with a circumference of fifteen or twenty miles. The passion

of the Parisian for the country is such that local enterprise could successfully compete with the Lesser Stage

company,Petites Messageries, the name given to the Touchard enterprise to distinguish it from that of the

Grandes Messageries of the rue Montmartre. At the time of which we write, the Touchard success was

stimulating speculators. For every small locality in the neighborhood of Paris there sprang up schemes of

beautiful, rapid, and commodious vehicles, departing and arriving in Paris at fixed hours, which produced,

naturally, a fierce competition. Beaten on the long distances of twelve to eighteen miles, the coucou came

down to shorter trips, and so lived on for several years. At last, however, it succumbed to omnibuses, which

demonstrated the possibility of carrying eighteen persons in a vehicle drawn by two horses. Today the

coucousif by chance any of those birds of ponderous flight still linger in the secondhand

carriageshopsmight be made, as to its structure and arrangement, the subject of learned researches

comparable to those of Cuvier on the animals discovered in the chalk pits of Montmartre.

These petty enterprises, which had struggled since 1822 against the Touchards, usually found a strong

foothold in the goodwill and sympathy of the inhabitants of the districts which they served. The person

undertaking the business as proprietor and conductor was nearly always an innkeeper along the route, to

whom the beings, things, and interests with which he had to do were all familiar. He could execute

commissions intelligently; he never asked as much for his little stages, and therefore obtained more custom

than the Touchard coaches. He managed to elude the necessity of a customhouse permit. If need were, he

was willing to infringe the law as to the number of passengers he might carry. In short, he possessed the

affection of the masses; and thus it happened that whenever a rival came upon the same route, if his days for

running were not the same as those of the coucou, travellers would put off their journey to make it with their

longtried coachman, although his vehicle and his horses might be in a far from reassuring condition.

One of the lines which the Touchards, father and son, endeavored to monopolize, and the one most stoutly

disputed (as indeed it still is), is that of Paris to BeaumontsurOise,a line extremely profitable, for three

rival enterprises worked it in 1822. In vain the Touchards lowered their price; in vain they constructed better

coaches and started oftener. Competition still continued, so productive is a line on which are little towns like

SaintDenis and SaintBrice, and villages like Pierrefitte, Groslay, Ecouen, Poncelles, Moisselles, Monsoult,

Maffliers, Franconville, Presles, Nointel, Nerville, etc. The Touchard coaches finally extended their route to

Chambly; but competition followed. Today the Toulouse, a rival enterprise, goes as far as Beauvais.

Along this route, which is that toward England, there lies a road which turns off at a place wellnamed, in

view of its topography, The Cave, and leads through a most delightful valley in the basin of the Oise to the

little town of IsleAdam, doubly celebrated as the cradle of the family, now extinct, of IsleAdam, and also

as the former residence of the BourbonContis. IsleAdam is a little town flanked by two large villages,

Nogent and Parmain, both remarkable for splendid quarries, which have furnished material for many of the

finest buildings in modern Paris and in foreign lands,for the base and capital of the columns of the

Brussels theatre are of Nogent stone. Though remarkable for its beautiful sites, for the famous chateaux

which princes, monks, and designers have built, such as Cassan, Stors, Le Val, Nointel, Persan, etc., this

region had escaped competition in 1822, and was reached by two coaches only, working more or less in

This exception to the rule of rivalry was founded on reasons that are easy to understand. From the Cave, the

point on the route to England where a paved road (due to the luxury of the Princes of Conti) turned off to

IsleAdam, the distance is six miles. No speculating enterprise would make such a detour, for IsleAdam

was the terminus of the road, which did not go beyond it. Of late years, another road has been made between

the valley of Montmorency and the valley of the Oise; but in 1822 the only road which led to IsleAdam was

the paved highway of the Princes of Conti. Pierrotin and his colleague reigned, therefore, from Paris to

IsleAdam, beloved by every one along the way. Pierrotin's vehicle, together with that of his comrade, and

Pierrotin himself, were so well known that even the inhabitants on the main road as far as the Cave were in

the habit of using them; for there was always better chance of a seat to be had than in the Beaumont coaches,

which were almost always full. Pierrotin and his competitor were on the best of terms. When the former

It is unnecessary to speak of the rival. Pierrotin possessed the sympathies of his region; besides, he is the only

one of the two who appears in this veracious narrative. Let it suffice you to know that the two coach

proprietors lived under a good understanding, rivalled each other loyally, and obtained customers by

honorable proceedings. In Paris they used, for economy's sake, the same yard, hotel, and stable, the same

coachhouse, office, and clerk. This detail is alone sufficient to show that Pierrotin and his competitor were,

as the popular saying is, "good dough." The hotel at which they put up in Paris, at the corner of the rue

d'Enghien, is still there, and is called the "Lion d'Argent." The proprietor of the establishment, which from

time immemorial had lodged coachmen and coaches, drove himself for the great company of Daumartin,

which was so firmly established that its neighbors, the Touchards, whose place of business was directly

Though the departures for IsleAdam professed to take place at a fixed hour, Pierrotin and his corival

practised an indulgence in that respect which won for them the grateful affection of the country people, and

also violent remonstrances on the part of strangers accustomed to the regularity of the great lines of public

conveyances. But the two conductors of these vehicles, which were half diligence, half coucou, were

invariably defended by their regular customers. The afternoon departure at four o'clock usually lagged on till

halfpast, while that of the morning, fixed for eight o'clock, was seldom known to take place before nine. In

this respect, however, the system was elastic. In summer, that golden period for the coaching business, the

rule of departure, rigorous toward strangers, was often relaxed for country customers. This method not

infrequently enabled Pierrotin to pocket two fares for one place, if a countryman came early and wanted a

seat already booked and paid for by some "bird of passage" who was, unluckily for himself, a little late. Such

elasticity will certainly not commend itself to purists in morality; but Pierrotin and his colleague justified it

on the varied grounds of "hard times," of their losses during the winter months, of the necessity of soon

getting better coaches, and of the duty of keeping exactly to the rules written on the tariff, copies of which

were, however, never shown, unless some chance traveller was obstinate enough to demand it.

Pierrotin, a man about forty years of age, was already the father of a family. Released from the cavalry on the

great disbandment of 1815, the worthy fellow had succeeded his father, who for many years had driven a

coucou of capricious flight between Paris and IsleAdam. Having married the daughter of a small

innkeeper, he enlarged his business, made it a regular service, and became noted for his intelligence and a

certain military precision. Active and decided in his ways, Pierrotin (the name seems to have been a

sobriquet) contrived to give, by the vivacity of his countenance, an expression of sly shrewdness to his ruddy

and weatherstained visage which suggested wit. He was not without that facility of speech which is acquired

chiefly through "seeing life" and other countries. His voice, by dint of talking to his horses and shouting

"Gare!" was rough; but he managed to tone it down with the bourgeois. His clothing, like that of all

coachmen of the second class, consisted of stout boots, heavy with nails, made at IsleAdam, trousers of

bottlegreen velveteen, waistcoat of the same, over which he wore, while exercising his functions, a blue

blouse, ornamented on the collar, shoulderstraps and cuffs, with manycolored embroidery. A cap with a

visor covered his head. His military career had left in Pierrotin's manners and customs a great respect for all

social superiority, and a habit of obedience to persons of the upper classes; and though he never willingly

mingled with the lesser bourgeoisie, he always respected women in whatever station of life they belonged.

Nevertheless, by dint of "trundling the world,"one of his own expressions,he had come to look upon

those he conveyed as so many walking parcels, who required less care than the inanimate ones,the

Warned by the general movement which, since the Peace, was revolutionizing his calling, Pierrotin would not

allow himself to be outdone by the progress of new lights. Since the beginning of the summer season he had

talked much of a certain large coach, ordered from Farry, Breilmann, and Company, the best makers of

diligences,a purchase necessitated by an increasing influx of travellers. Pierrotin's present establishment

consisted of two vehicles. One, which served in winter, and the only one he reported to the tax gatherer, was

the coucou which he inherited from his father. The rounded flanks of this vehicle allowed him to put six

travellers on two seats, of metallic hardness in spite of the yellow Utrecht velvet with which they were

covered. These seats were separated by a wooden bar inserted in the sides of the carriage at the height of the

travellers' shoulders, which could be placed or removed at will. This bar, specially covered with velvet

(Pierrotin called it "a back"), was the despair of the passengers, from the great difficulty they found in placing

and removing it. If the "back" was difficult and even painful to handle, that was nothing to the suffering

caused to the omoplates when the bar was in place. But when it was left to lie loose across the coach, it made

Though each seat of this vehicle, with rounded sides like those of a pregnant woman, could rightfully carry

only three passengers, it was not uncommon to see eight persons on the two seats jammed together like

herrings in a barrel. Pierrotin declared that the travellers were far more comfortable in a solid, immovable

mass; whereas when only three were on a seat they banged each other perpetually, and ran much risk of

injuring their hats against the roof by the violent jolting of the roads. In front of the vehicle was a wooden

bench where Pierrotin sat, on which three travellers could perch; when there, they went, as everybody knows,

by the name of "rabbits." On certain trips Pierrotin placed four rabbits on the bench, and sat himself at the

side, on a sort of box placed below the body of the coach as a footrest for the rabbits, which was always full

of straw, or of packages that feared no damage. The body of this particular coucou was painted yellow,

embellished along the top with a band of barber's blue, on which could be read, on the sides, in silvery white

Our descendants will be mightily mistaken if they fancy that thirteen persons including Pierrotin were all that

this vehicle could carry. On great occasions it could take three more in a square compartment covered with an

awning, where the trunks, cases, and packages were piled; but the prudent Pierrotin only allowed his regular

customers to sit there, and even they were not allowed to get in until at some distance beyond the "barriere."

The occupants of the "henroost" (the name given by conductors to this section of their vehicles) were made

to get down outside of every village or town where there was a post of gendarmerie; the overloading

forbidden by law, "for the safety of passengers," being too obvious to allow the gendarme on dutyalways a

friend to Pierrotinto avoid the necessity of reporting this flagrant violation of the ordinances. Thus on

certain Saturday nights and Monday mornings, Pierrotin's coucou "trundled" fifteen travellers; but on such

occasions, in order to drag it along, he gave his stout old horse, called Rougeot, a mate in the person of a little

beast no bigger than a pony, about whose merits he had much to say. This little horse was a mare named

Bichette; she ate little, she was spirited, she was indefatigable, she was worth her weight in gold.

"My wife wouldn't give her for that fat lazybones of a Rougeot!" cried Pierrotin, when some traveller would

The difference between this vehicle and the other consisted chiefly in the fact that the other was on four

wheels. This coach, of comical construction, called the "fourwheelcoach," held seventeen travellers,

though it was bound not to carry more than fourteen. It rumbled so noisily that the inhabitants of IsleAdam

frequently said, "Here comes Pierrotin!" when he was scarcely out of the forest which crowns the slope of the

valley. It was divided into two lobes, so to speak: one, called the "interior," contained six passengers on two

seats; the other, a sort of cabriolet constructed in front, was called the "coupe." This coupe was closed in with

very inconvenient and fantastic glass sashes, a description of which would take too much space to allow of its

being given here. The fourwheeled coach was surmounted by a hooded "imperial," into which Pierrotin

managed to poke six passengers; this space was inclosed by leather curtains. Pierrotin himself sat on an

The master of the establishment paid the tax which was levied upon all public conveyances on his coucou

only, which was rated to carry six persons; and he took out a special permit each time that he drove the

fourwheeler. This may seem extraordinary in these days, but when the tax on vehicles was first imposed, it

was done very timidly, and such deceptions were easily practised by the coach proprietors, always pleased to

"faire la queue" (cheat of their dues) the government officials, to use the argot of their vocabulary. Gradually

the greedy Treasury became severe; it forced all public conveyances not to roll unless they carried two

certificates,one showing that they had been weighed, the other that their taxes were duly paid. All things

have their salad days, even the Treasury; and in 1822 those days still lasted. Often in summer, the

"fourwheelcoach," and the coucou journeyed together, carrying between them thirtytwo passengers,

though Pierrotin was only paying a tax on six. On these specially lucky days the convoy started from the

faubourg SaintDenis at half past four o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived gallantly at IsleAdam by ten at

night. Proud of this service, which necessitated the hire of an extra horse, Pierrotin was wont to say:

But in order to do the twentyseven miles in five hours with his caravan, he was forced to omit certain

The hotel du Lion d'Argent occupies a piece of land which is very deep for its width. Though its frontage has

only three or four windows on the faubourg SaintDenis, the building extends back through a long

courtyard, at the end of which are the stables, forming a large house standing close against the division wall

of the adjoining property. The entrance is through a sort of passageway beneath the floor of the second

story, in which two or three coaches had room to stand. In 1822 the offices of all the lines of coaches which

started from the Lion d'Argent were kept by the wife of the innkeeper, who had as many books as there

were lines. She received the fares, booked the passengers, and stowed away, goodnaturedly, in her vast

kitchen the various packages and parcels to be transported. Travellers were satisfied with this easygoing,

patriarchal system. If they arrived too soon, they seated themselves beneath the hood of the huge kitchen

chimney, or stood within the passageway, or crossed to the Cafe de l'Echiquier, which forms the corner of

In the early days of the autumn of 1822, on a Saturday morning, Pierrotin was standing, with his hands thrust

into his pockets through the apertures of his blouse, beneath the portecochere of the Lion d'Argent, whence

he could see, diagonally, the kitchen of the inn, and through the long courtyard to the stables, which were

defined in black at the end of it. Daumartin's diligence had just started, plunging heavily after those of the

Touchards. It was past eight o'clock. Under the enormous porch or passage, above which could be read on a

long sign, "Hotel du Lion d'Argent," stood the stablemen and porters of the coachinglines watching the

lively start of the vehicles which deceives so many travellers, making them believe that the horses will be

"Shall I harness up, master?" asked Pierrotin's hostler, when there was nothing more to be seen along the

"It is a quarterpast eight, and I don't see any travellers," replied Pierrotin. "Where have they poked

themselves? Yes, harness up all the same. And there are no parcels either! Twenty good Gods! a fine day like

this, and I've only four booked! A pretty state of things for a Saturday! It is always the same when you want

"If you had more, where would you put them? There's nothing left but the cabriolet," said the hostler,

"Have you really got it?" asked the man, laughing, and showing a set of teeth as white and broad as almonds.

"You old goodfornothing! It starts tomorrow, I tell you; and I want at least eighteen passengers for it."

"A coach like that which runs to Beaumont, hey? Flaming! painted red and gold to make Touchard burst with

envy! It takes three horses! I have bought a mate for Rougeot, and Bichette will go finely in unicorn. Come,

harness up!" added Pierrotin, glancing out towards the street, and stuffing the tobacco into his clay pipe. "I

see a lady and lad over there with packages under their arms; they are coming to the Lion d'Argent, for

they've turned a deaf ear to the coucous. Tiens, tiens! seems to me I know that lady for an old customer."

"You've often started empty, and arrived full," said his porter, still by way of consolation.

And Pierrotin sat down on one of the huge stone posts which protected the walls of the building from the

wheels of the coaches; but he did so with an anxious, reflective air that was not habitual with him.

This conversation, apparently insignificant, had stirred up cruel anxieties which were slumbering in his

breast. What could there be to trouble the heart of Pierrotin in a fine new coach? To shine upon "the road," to

rival the Touchards, to magnify his own line, to carry passengers who would compliment him on the

conveniences due to the progress of coachbuilding, instead of having to listen to perpetual complaints of his

"sabots" (tires of enormous width),such was Pierrotin's laudable ambition; but, carried away with the

desire to outstrip his comrade on the line, hoping that the latter might some day retire and leave to him alone

the transportation to IsleAdam, he had gone too far. The coach was indeed ordered from Barry, Breilmann,

and Company, coachbuilders, who had just substituted square English springs for those called

"swannecks," and other oldfashioned French contrivances. But these hard and distrustful manufacturers

would only deliver over the diligence in return for coin. Not particularly pleased to build a vehicle which

would be difficult to sell if it remained upon their hands, these longheaded dealers declined to undertake it

at all until Pierrotin had made a preliminary payment of two thousand francs. To satisfy this precautionary

demand, Pierrotin had exhausted all his resources and all his credit. His wife, his fatherinlaw, and his

friends had bled. This superb diligence he had been to see the evening before at the painter's; all it needed

now was to be set arolling, but to make it roll, payment in full must, alas! be made.

Now, a thousand francs were lacking to Pierrotin, and where to get them he did not know. He was in debt to

the master of the Lion d'Argent; he was in danger of his losing his two thousand francs already paid to the

coachbuilder, not counting five hundred for the mate to Rougeot, and three hundred for new harnesses, on

which he had a threemonths' credit. Driven by the fury of despair and the madness of vanity, he had just

openly declared that the new coach was to start on the morrow. By offering fifteen hundred francs, instead of

the two thousand five hundred still due, he was in hopes that the softened carriagebuilders would give him

his coach. But after a few moments' meditation, his feelings led him to cry out aloud:

"No! they're dogs! harpies! Suppose I appeal to Monsieur Moreau, the steward at Presles? he is such a kind

man," thought Pierrotin, struck with a new idea. "Perhaps he would take my note for six months."

At this moment a footman in livery, carrying a leather portmanteau and coming from the Touchard

establishment, where he had gone too late to secure places as far as Chambly, came up and said:

"If you would wait a quarter of an hour, you could take my master. If not, I'll carry back the portmanteau and

"I'll wait two, three quarters, and throw a little in besides, my lad," said Pierrotin, eyeing the pretty leather

"Very good; then take this," said the valet, ridding his shoulder of the trunk, which Pierrotin lifted, weighed,

"Here," he said to his porter, "wrap it up carefully in soft hay and put it in the boot. There's no name upon it,"

"Monseigneur! Come and take a glass," said Pierrotin, nodding toward the Cafe de l'Echiquier, whither he

conducted the valet. "Waiter, two absinthes!" he said, as he entered. "Who is your master? and where is he

going? I have never seen you before," said Pierrotin to the valet as they touched glasses.

"There's a good reason for that," said the footman. "My master only goes into your parts about once a year,

and then in his own carriage. He prefers the valley d'Orge, where he has the most beautiful park in the

neighborhood of Paris, a perfect Versailles, a family estate of which he bears the name. Don't you know

"Ha! then I'm to carry Monsieur le Comte de Serizy!" cried the coach proprietor.

"Yes, my land, neither more nor less. But listen! here's a special order. If you have any of the country

neighbors in your coach you are not to call him Monsieur le comte; he wants to travel 'en cognito,' and told

me to be sure to say he would pay a handsome pourboire if he was not recognized."

"So! Has this secret journey anything to do with the affair which Pere Leger, the farmer at the Moulineaux,

"I don't know," replied the valet, "but the fat's in the fire. Last night I was sent to the stable to order the

Daumont carriage to be ready to go to Presles at seven this morning. But when seven o'clock came, Monsieur

le comte countermanded it. Augustin, his valet de chambre, attributes the change to the visit of a lady who

called last night, and again this morning,he thought she came from the country."

"Could she have told him anything against Monsieur Moreau?the best of men, the most honest of men, a

king of men, hey! He might have made a deal more than he has out of his position, if he'd chosen; I can tell

"Is Monsieur le Serizy going to live at Presles at last?" asked Pierrotin; "for you know they have just repaired

and refurnished the chateau. Do you think it is true he has already spent two hundred thousand francs upon

"If you or I had half what he has spent upon it, you and I would be rich bourgeois. If Madame la comtesse

goes thereha! I tell you what! no more ease and comfort for the Moreaus," said the valet, with an air of

"He's a worthy man, Monsieur Moreau," remarked Pierrotin, thinking of the thousand francs he wanted to get

from the steward. "He is a man who makes others work, but he doesn't cheapen what they do; and he gets all

he can out of the landfor his master. Honest man! He often comes to Paris and gives me a good fee: he has

lots of errands for me to do in Paris; sometimes three or four packages a day,either from monsieur or

madame. My bill for cartage alone comes to fifty francs a month, more or less. If madame does set up to be

somebody, she's fond of her children; and it is I who fetch them from school and take them back; and each

time she gives me five francs,a real great lady couldn't do better than that. And every time I have any one

in the coach belonging to them or going to see them, I'm allowed to drive up to the chateau,that's all right,

"They say Monsieur Moreau wasn't worth three thousand francs when Monsieur le comte made him steward

"Well, since 1806, there's seventeen years, and the man ought to have made something at any rate."

"True," said the valet, nodding. "Anyway, masters are very annoying; and I hope, for Moreau's sake, that he

"I have often been to your house in the rue de la Chaussee d'Antin to carry baskets of game," said Pierrotin,

"Monsieur le comte is a good man," said the footman, confidentially. "But if he insists on your helping to

keep up his cognito there's something in the wind. At any rate, so we think at the house; or else, why should

he countermand the Daumont,why travel in a coucou? A peer of France might afford to hire a cabriolet to

"A cabriolet would cost him forty francs to go there and back; for let me tell you, if you don't know it, that

road was only made for squirrels,uphill and down, downhill and up!" said Pierrotin. "Peer of France or

bourgeois, they are all looking after the main chance, and saving their money. If this journey concerns

Monsieur Moreau, faith, I'd be sorry any harm should come to him! Twenty good Gods! hadn't I better find

some way of warning him?for he's a truly good man, a kind man, a king of men, hey!"

"Pooh! Monsieur le comte thinks everything of Monsieur Moreau," replied the valet. "But let me give you a

bit of good advice. Every man for himself in this world. We have enough to do to take care of ourselves. Do

what Monsieur le comte asks you to do, and all the more because there's no trifling with him. Besides, to tell

the truth, the count is generous. If you oblige him so far," said the valet, pointing halfway down his little

finger, "he'll send you on as far as that," stretching out his arm to its full length.

This wise reflection, and the action that enforced it, had the effect, coming from a man who stood as high as

second valet to the Comte de Serizy, of cooling the ardor of Pierrotin for the steward of Presles.

A glance rapidly cast on the life of the Comte de Serizy, and on that of his steward, is here necessary in order

to fully understand the little drama now about to take place in Pierrotin's vehicle.

Monsieur Huguet de Serisy descends in a direct line from the famous president Huguet, ennobled under

This family bears: party per pale or and sable, an orle counterchanged and two lozenges counterchanged,

with: "i, semper melius eris,"a motto which, together with the two distaffs taken as supporters, proves the

modesty of the burgher families in the days when the Orders held their allotted places in the State; and the

naivete of our ancient customs by the pun on "eris," which word, combined with the "i" at the beginning and

the final "s" in "melius," forms the name (Serisy) of the estate from which the family take their title.

The father of the present count was president of a parliament before the Revolution. He himself a councillor

of State at the Grand Council of 1787, when he was only twentytwo years of age, was even then

distinguished for his admirable memoranda on delicate diplomatic matters. He did not emigrate during the

Revolution, and spent that period on his estate of Serizy near Arpajon, where the respect in which his father

was held protected him from all danger. After spending several years in taking care of the old president, who

died in 1794, he was elected about that time to the Council of the Five Hundred, and accepted those

legislative functions to divert his mind from his grief. After the 18th Brumaire, Monsieur de Serizy became,

like so many other of the old parliamentary families, an object of the First Consul's blandishment. He was

appointed to the Council of State, and received one of the most disorganized departments of the government

to reconstruct. This scion of an old historical family proved to be a very active wheel in the grand and

The councillor of State was soon called from his particular administration to a ministry. Created count and

senator by the Emperor, he was made proconsul to two kingdoms in succession. In 1806, when forty years of

age, he married the sister of the cidevant Marquis de Ronquerolles, the widow at twenty of Gaubert, one of

the most illustrious of the Republican generals, who left her his whole property. This marriage, a suitable one

in point of rank, doubled the already considerable fortune of the Comte de Serizy, who became through his

wife the brotherinlaw of the cidevant Marquis de Rouvre, made count and chamberlain by the Emperor.

In 1814, weary with constant toil, the Comte de Serizy, whose shattered health required rest, resigned all his

posts, left the department at the head of which the Emperor had placed him, and came to Paris, where

Napoleon was compelled by the evidence of his eyes to admit that the count's illness was a valid excuse,

though at first that UNFATIGUABLE master, who gave no heed to the fatigue of others, was disposed to

consider Monsieur de Serizy's action as a defection. Though the senator was never in disgrace, he was

supposed to have reason to complain of Napoleon. Consequently, when the Bourbons returned, Louis XVIII.,

whom Monsieur de Serizy held to be his legitimate sovereign, treated the senator, now a peer of France, with

the utmost confidence, placed him in charge of his private affairs, and appointed him one of his cabinet

ministers. On the 20th of March, Monsieur de Serizy did not go to Ghent. He informed Napoleon that he

remained faithful to the house of Bourbon; would not accept his peerage during the Hundred Days, and

After the second fall of the Emperor, he became once more a privy councillor, was appointed vicepresident

of the Council of State, and liquidator, on behalf of France, of claims and indemnities demanded by foreign

powers. Without personal assumption, without ambition even, he possessed great influence in public affairs.

Nothing of importance was done without consulting him; but he never went to court, and was seldom seen in

his own salons. This noble life, devoting itself from its very beginning to work, had ended by becoming a life

of incessant toil. The count rose at all seasons by four o'clock in the morning, and worked till midday,

attended to his functions as peer of France and vicepresident of the Council of State in the afternoons, and

went to bed at nine o'clock. In recognition of such labor, the King had made him a knight of his various

Orders. Monsieur de Serizy had long worn the grand cross of the Legion of honor; he also had the orders of

the Golden Fleece, of SaintAndrew of Russia, that of the Prussian Eagle, and nearly all the lesser Orders of

the courts of Europe. No man was less obvious, or more useful in the political world than he. It is easy to

understand that the world's honor, the fuss and feathers of public favor, the glories of success were indifferent

to a man of this stamp; but no one, unless a priest, ever comes to life of this kind without some serious

In love with his wife before he married her, this passion had lasted through all the secret unhappiness of his

marriage with a widow,a woman mistress of herself before as well as after her second marriage, and who

used her liberty all the more freely because her husband treated her with the indulgence of a mother for a

spoilt child. His constant toil served him as shield and buckler against pangs of heart which he silenced with

the care that diplomatists give to the keeping of secrets. He knew, moreover, how ridiculous was jealousy in

the eyes of a society that would never have believed in the conjugal passion of an old statesman. How

happened it that from the earliest days of his marriage his wife so fascinated him? Why did he suffer without

resistance? How was it that he dared not resist? Why did he let the years go by and still hope on? By what

The answer to all these questions would require a long history, which would injure our present tale. Let us

only remark here that the constant toil and grief of the count had unfortunately contributed not a little to

deprive him of personal advantages very necessary to a man who attempts to struggle against dangerous

comparisons. In fact, the most cruel of the count's secret sorrows was that of causing repugnance to his wife

by a malady of the skin resulting solely from excessive labor. Kind, and always considerate of the countess,

he allowed her to be mistress of herself and her home. She received all Paris; she went into the country; she

returned from it precisely as though she were still a widow. He took care of her fortune and supplied her

luxury as a steward might have done. The countess had the utmost respect for her husband. She even admired

his turn of mind; she knew how to make him happy by approbation; she could do what she pleased with him

by simply going to his study and talking for an hour with him. Like the great seigneurs of the olden time, the

count protected his wife so loyally that a single word of disrespect said of her would have been to him an

unpardonable injury. The world admired him for this; and Madame de Serizy owed much to it. Any other

woman, even though she came of a family as distinguished as the Ronquerolles, might have found herself

degraded in public opinion. The countess was ungrateful, but she mingled a charm with her ingratitude. From

Let us now explain the meaning of this sudden journey, and the incognito maintained by a minister of State.

A rich farmer of BeaumontsurOise, named Leger, leased and cultivated a farm, the fields of which

projected into and greatly injured the magnificent estate of the Comte de Serizy, called Presles. This farm

belonged to a burgher of BeaumontsurOise, named Margueron. The lease made to Leger in 1799, at a time

when the great advance of agriculture was not foreseen, was about to expire, and the owner of the farm

refused all offers from Leger to renew the lease. For some time past, Monsieur de Serizy, wishing to rid

himself of the annoyances and petty disputes caused by the inclosure of these fields within his land, had

desired to buy the farm, having heard that Monsieur Margueron's chief ambition was to have his only son,

then a mere taxgatherer, made special collector of finances at Beaumont. The farmer, who knew he could

sell the fields piecemeal to the count at a high price, was ready to pay Margueron even more than he expected

Thus matters stood when, two days earlier than that of which we write, Monsieur de Serizy, anxious to end

the matter, sent for his notary, Alexandre Crottat, and his lawyer, Derville, to examine into all the

circumstances of the affair. Though Derville and Crottat threw some doubt on the zeal of the count's steward

(a disturbing letter from whom had led to the consultation), Monsieur de Serizy defended Moreau, who, he

"Very well!" said Derville, "then I advise your Excellency to go to Presles yourself, and invite this

Margueron to dinner. Crottat will send his headclerk with a deed of sale drawn up, leaving only the

necessary lines for description of property and titles in blank. Your Excellency should take with you part of

the purchase money in a check on the Bank of France, not forgetting the appointment of the son to the

collectorship. If you don't settle the thing at once that farm will slip through your fingers. You don't know,

Monsieur le comte, the trickery of these peasants. Peasants against diplomat, and the diplomat succumbs."

Crottat agreed in this advice, which the count, if we may judge by the valet's statements to Pierrotin, had

adopted. The preceding evening he had sent Moreau a line by the diligence to Beaumont, telling him to invite

Margueron to dinner in order that they might then and there close the purchase of the farm of Moulineaux.

Before this matter came up, the count had already ordered the chateau of Presles to be restored and

refurnished, and for the last year, Grindot, an architect then in fashion, was in the habit of making a weekly

visit. So, while concluding his purchase of the farm, Monsieur de Serizy also intended to examine the work of

restoration and the effect of the new furniture. He intended all this to be a surprise to his wife when he

brought her to Presles, and with this idea in his mind, he had put some personal pride and selflove into the

work. How came it therefore that the count, who intended in the evening to drive to Presles openly in his own

carriage, should be starting early the next morning incognito in Pierrotin's coucou?

Moreau, steward of the state of Presles, was the son of a provincial attorney who became during the

Revolution syndicattorney at Versailles. In that position, Moreau the father had been the means of almost

saving both the lives and property of the Serizys, father and son. Citizen Moreau belonged to the Danton

party; Robespierre, implacable in his hatreds, pursued him, discovered him, and finally had him executed at

Versailles. Moreau the son, heir to the doctrines and friendships of his father, was concerned in one of the

conspiracies which assailed the First Consul on his accession to power. At this crisis, Monsieur de Serizy,

anxious to pay his debt of gratitude, enabled Moreau, lying under sentence of death, to make his escape; in

1804 he asked for his pardon, obtained it, offered him first a place in his government office, and finally took

Some time after the marriage of his patron Moreau fell in love with the countess's waitingwoman and

married her. To avoid the annoyances of the false position in which this marriage placed him (more than one

example of which could be seen at the imperial court), Moreau asked the count to give him the management

of the Presles estate, where his wife could play the lady in a country region, and neither of them would be

made to suffer from wounded selflove. The count wanted a trustworthy man at Presles, for his wife

preferred Serizy, an estate only fifteen miles from Paris. For three or four years Moreau had held the key of

the count's affairs; he was intelligent, and before the Revolution he had studied law in his father's office; so

"You can never advance in life," he said to Moreau, "for you have broken your neck; but you can be happy,

He gave Moreau a salary of three thousand francs and his residence in a charming lodge near the chateau, all

the wood he needed from the timber that was cut on the estate, oats, hay, and straw for two horses, and a right

to whatever he wanted of the produce of the gardens. A subprefect is not as well provided for.

During the first eight years of his stewardship, Moreau managed the estate conscientiously; he took an

interest in it. The count, coming down now and then to examine the property, pass judgment on what had

been done, and decide on new purchases, was struck with Moreau's evident loyalty, and showed his

But after the birth of Moreau's third child, a daughter, he felt himself so securely settled in all his comforts at

Presles that he ceased to attribute to Monsieur de Serizy those enormous advantages. About the year 1816,

the steward, who until then had only taken what he needed for his own use from the estate, accepted a sum of

twenty five thousand francs from a woodmerchant as an inducement to lease to the latter, for twelve years,

the cutting of all the timber. Moreau argued this: he could have no pension; he was the father of a family; the

count really owed him that sum as a gift after ten years' management; already the legitimate possessor of

sixty thousand francs in savings, if he added this sum to that, he could buy a farm worth a hundred and

twentyfive thousand francs in Champagne, a township just above IsleAdam, on the right bank of the Oise.

Political events prevented both the count and the neighboring countrypeople from becoming aware of this

investment, which was made in the name of Madame Moreau, who was understood to have inherited property

As soon as the steward had tasted the delightful fruit of the possession of the property, he began, all the while

maintaining toward the world an appearance of the utmost integrity, to lose no occasion of increasing his

fortune clandestinely; the interests of his three children served as a poultice to the wounds of his honor.

Nevertheless, we ought in justice to say that while he accepted casks of wine, and took care of himself in all

the purchases that he made for the count, yet according to the terms of the Code he remained an honest man,

and no proof could have been found to justify an accusation against him. According to the jurisprudence of

the least thieving cook in Paris, he shared with the count in the profits due to his own capable management.

This manner of swelling his fortune was simply a case of conscience, that was all. Alert, and thoroughly

understanding the count's interests, Moreau watched for opportunities to make good purchases all the more

eagerly, because he gained a larger percentage on them. Presles returned a revenue of seventy thousand

Being a prudent man, Moreau invested yearly, after 1817, both his profits and his salary on the Grand Livre,

piling up his heap with the utmost secrecy. He often refused proposals on the plea of want of money; and he

played the poor man so successfully with the count that the latter gave him the means to send both his sons to

the school Henri IV. At the present moment Moreau was worth one hundred and twenty thousand francs of

capital invested in the Consolidated thirds, now paying five per cent, and quoted at eighty francs. These

carefully hidden one hundred and twenty thousand francs, and his farm at Champagne, enlarged by

subsequent purchases, amounted to a fortune of about two hundred and eighty thousand francs, giving him an

Such was the position of the steward at the time when the Comte de Serizy desired to purchase the farm of

Moulineaux,the ownership of which was indispensable to his comfort. This farm consisted of ninety six

parcels of land bordering the estate of Presles, and frequently running into it, producing the most annoying

discussions as to the trimming of hedges and ditches and the cutting of trees. Any other than a cabinet

minister would probably have had scores of lawsuits on his hands. Pere Leger only wished to buy the

property in order to sell to the count at a handsome advance. In order to secure the exorbitant sum on which

his mind was set, the farmer had long endeavored to come to an understanding with Moreau. Impelled by

circumstances, he had, only three days before this critical Sunday, had a talk with the steward in the open

field, and proved to him clearly that he (Moreau) could make the count invest his money at two and a half per

cent, and thus appear to serve his patron's interests, while he himself pocketed forty thousand francs which

"I tell you what," said the steward to his wife, as he went to bed that night, "if I make fifty thousand francs

out of the Moulineaux affair,and I certainly shall, for the count will give me ten thousand as a fee,we'll

This "pavillon" was a charming place, originally built by the Prince de Conti for a mistress, and in it every

"That will suit me," said his wife. "The Dutchman who lives there has put it in good order, and now that he is

obliged to return to India, he would probably let us have it for thirty thousand francs."

"We shall be close to Champagne," said Moreau. "I am in hopes of buying the farm and mill of Mours for a

hundred thousand francs. That would give us ten thousand a year in rentals. Nogent is one of the most

delightful residences in the valley; and we should still have an income of ten thousand from the

"But why don't you ask for the post of jugedepaix at IsleAdam? That would give us influence, and fifteen

With these plans in mind, Moreau, as soon as he heard from the count that he was coming to Presles, and

wished him to invite Margueron to dinner on Saturday, sent off an express to the count's headvalet,

inclosing a letter to his master, which the messenger failed to deliver before Monsieur de Serizy retired at his

usually early hour. Augustin, however, placed it, according to custom in such cases, on his master's desk. In

this letter Moreau begged the count not to trouble himself to come down, but to trust entirely to him. He

added that Margueron was no longer willing to sell the whole in one block, and talked of cutting the farm up

into a number of smaller lots. It was necessary to circumvent this plan, and perhaps, added Moreau, it might

Everybody has enemies in this life. Now the steward and his wife had wounded the feelings of a retired army

officer, Monsieur de Reybert, and his wife, who were living near Presles. From speeches like pin pricks,

matters had advanced to daggerthrusts. Monsieur de Reybert breathed vengeance. He was determined to

make Moreau lose his situation and gain it himself. The two ideas were twins. Thus the proceedings of the

steward, spied upon for two years, were no secret to Reybert. The same conveyance that took Moreau's letter

to the count conveyed Madame de Reybert, whom her husband despatched to Paris. There she asked with

such earnestness to see the count that although she was sent away at nine o'clock, he having then gone to bed,

"Monsieur," she said to the cabinetminister, "we are incapable, my husband and I, of writing anonymous

letters, therefore I have come to see you in person. I am Madame de Reybert, nee de Corroy. My husband is a

retired officer, with a pension of six hundred francs, and we live at Presles, where your steward has offered us

insult after insult, although we are persons of good station. Monsieur de Reybert, who is not an intriguing

man, far from it, is a captain of artillery, retired in 1816, having served twenty years,always at a distance

from the Emperor, Monsieur le comte. You know of course how difficult it is for soldiers who are not under

the eye of their master to obtain promotion,not counting that the integrity and frankness of Monsieur de

Reybert were displeasing to his superiors. My husband has watched your steward for the last three years,

being aware of his dishonesty and intending to have him lose his place. We are, as you see, quite frank with

you. Moreau has made us his enemies, and we have watched him. I have come to tell you that you are being

tricked in the purchase of the Moulineaux farm. They mean to get an extra hundred thousand francs out of

you, which are to be divided between the notary, the farmer Leger, and Moreau. You have written Moreau to

invite Margueron, and you are going to Presles today; but Margueron will be ill, and Leger is so certain of

buying the farm that he is now in Paris to draw the money. If we have enlightened you as to what is going on,

and if you want an upright steward you will take my husband; though noble, he will serve you as he has

served the State. Your steward has made a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand francs out of his place;

The count thanked Madame de Reybert coldly, bestowing upon her the holywater of courts, for he despised

backbiting; but for all that, he remembered Derville's doubts, and felt inwardly shaken. Just then he saw his

steward's letter and read it. In its assurances of devotion and its respectful reproaches for the distrust implied

"Corruption has come to him with fortune,as it always does!" he said to himself.

The count then made several inquiries of Madame de Reybert, less to obtain information than to gain time to

observe her; and he wrote a short note to his notary telling him not to send his headclerk to Presles as

"Though Monsieur le comte," said Madame de Reybert in conclusion, "may have judged me unfavorably for

the step I have taken unknown to my husband, he ought to be convinced that we have obtained this

information about his steward in a natural and honorable manner; the most sensitive conscience cannot take

So saying, Madame de Reybert, nee de Corroy, stood erect as a pike staff. She presented to the rapid

investigation of the count a face seamed with the smallpox like a colander with holes, a flat, spare figure,

two light and eager eyes, fair hair plastered down upon an anxious forehead, a small drawnbonnet of faded

green taffetas lined with pink, a white gown with violet spots, and leather shoes. The count recognized the

wife of some poor, halfpay captain, a puritan, subscribing no doubt to the "Courrier Francais," earnest in

"You say your husband has a pension of six hundred francs," he said, replying to his own thoughts, and not to

He had thought at one time of giving the management of the estate to some retired army officer, about whom

"Madame," he resumed, ringing for his valet, "return to Presles, this afternoon with my notary, who is going

down there for dinner, and to whom I have recommended you. Here is his address. I am going myself secretly

It will thus be seen that Monsieur de Serizy's journey by a public conveyance, and the injunction conveyed by

the valet to conceal his name and rank had not unnecessarily alarmed Pierrotin. That worthy had just

forebodings of a danger which was about to swoop down upon one of his best customers.

As Pierrotin issued from the Cafe de l'Echiquier, after treating the valet, he saw in the gateway of the Lion

d'Argent the lady and the young man in whom his perspicacity at once detected customers, for the lady with

outstretched neck and anxious face was evidently looking for him. She was dressed in a blacksilk gown that

was dyed, a brown bonnet, an old French cashmere shawl, rawsilk stockings, and low shoes; and in her hand

she carried a straw bag and a blue umbrella. This woman, who had once been beautiful, seemed to be about

forty years of age; but her blue eyes, deprived of the fire which happiness puts there, told plainly that she had

long renounced the world. Her dress, as well as her whole air and demeanor, indicated a mother wholly

devoted to her household and her son. If the strings of her bonnet were faded, the shape betrayed that it was

several years old. The shawl was fastened by a broken needle converted into a pin by a bead of sealingwax.

She was waiting impatiently for Pierrotin, wishing to recommend to his special care her son, who was

doubtless travelling for the first time, and with whom she had come to the coachoffice as much from doubt

This mother was in every way completed by the son, so that the son would not be understood without the

mother. If the mother condemned herself to mended gloves, the son wore an olivegreen coat with sleeves

too short for him, proving that he had grown, and might grow still more, like other adults of eighteen or

nineteen years of age. The blue trousers, mended by his mother, presented to the eye a brighter patch of color

"Don't rub your gloves that way, you'll spoil them," she was saying as Pierrotin appeared. "Is this the

conductor? Ah! Pierrotin, is it you?" she exclaimed, leaving her son and taking the coachman apart a few

"I hope you're well, Madame Clapart," he replied, with an air that expressed both respect and familiarity.

"Yes, Pierrotin, very well. Please take good care of my Oscar; he is travelling alone for the first time."

"Oh! so he is going alone to Monsieur Moreau!" cried Pierrotin, for the purpose of finding out whether he

"Ah!" said the mother, "it will not be all roses for him, poor child! But his future absolutely requires that I

This answer struck Pierrotin, who hesitated to confide his fears for the steward to Madame Clapart, while she,

on her part, was afraid of injuring her boy if she asked Pierrotin for a care which might have transformed him

into a mentor. During this short deliberation, which was ostensibly covered by a few phrases as to the

weather, the journey, and the stoppingplaces along the road, we will ourselves explain what were the ties

that united Madame Clapart with Pierrotin, and authorized the two confidential remarks which they have just

Oftenthat is to say, three or four times a monthPierrotin, on his way to Paris, would find the steward on

the road near La Cave. As soon as the vehicle came up, Moreau would sign to a gardener, who, with

Pierrotin's help, would put upon the coach either one or two baskets containing the fruits and vegetables of

the season, chickens, eggs, butter, and game. The steward always paid the carriage and Pierrotin's fee, adding

the money necessary to pay the toll at the barriere, if the baskets contained anything dutiable. These baskets,

hampers, or packages, were never directed to any one. On the first occasion, which served for all others, the

steward had given Madame Clapart's address by word of mouth to the discreet Pierrotin, requesting him

never to deliver to others the precious packages. Pierrotin, impressed with the idea of an intrigue between the

steward and some pretty girl, had gone as directed to number 7 rue de la Cerisaie, in the Arsenal quarter, and

had there found the Madame Clapart just portrayed, instead of the young and beautiful creature he expected

The drivers of public conveyances and carriers are called by their business to enter many homes, and to be

cognizant of many secrets; but social accident, that subprovidence, having willed that they be without

education and devoid of the talent of observation, it follows that they are not dangerous. Nevertheless, at the

end of a few months, Pierrotin was puzzled to explain the exact relations of Monsieur Moreau and Madame

Clapart from what he saw of the household in the rue de la Cerisaie. Though lodgings were not dear at that

time in the Arsenal quarter, Madame Clapart lived on a third floor at the end of a courtyard, in a house

which was formerly that of a great family, in the days when the higher nobility of the kingdom lived on the

ancient site of the Palais des Tournelles and the hotel SaintPaul. Toward the end of the sixteenth century,

the great seigneurs divided among themselves these vast spaces, once occupied by the gardens of the kings of

France, as indicated by the present names of the streets, Cerisaie, Beautreillis, des Lions, etc. Madame

Clapart's apartment, which was panelled throughout with ancient carvings, consisted of three connecting

rooms, a diningroom, salon, and bedroom. Above it was the kitchen, and a bedroom for Oscar. Opposite to

the entrance, on what is called in Paris "le carre,"that is, the square landing,was the door of a back

room, opening, on every floor, into a sort of tower built of rough stone, in which was also the well for the

Pierrotin had seen in the first room, where he deposited the hampers, six wooden chairs with straw seats, a

table, and a sideboard; at the windows, discolored curtains. Later, when he entered the salon, he noticed some

old Empire furniture, now shabby; but only as much as all proprietors exact to secure their rent. Pierrotin

judged of the bedroom by the salon and diningroom. The woodwork, painted coarsely of a reddish white,

which thickened and blurred the mouldings and figurines, far from being ornamental, was distressing to the

eye. The floors, never waxed, were of that gray tone we see in boarding schools. When Pierrotin came upon

Monsieur and Madame Clapart at their meals he saw that their china, glass, and all other little articles

betrayed the utmost poverty; and yet, though the chipped and mended dishes and tureens were those of the

Monsieur Clapart, clothed in a shabby surtout, his feet in broken slippers, always wore green spectacles, and

exhibited, whenever he removed his shabby cap of a bygone period, a pointed skull, from the top of which

trailed a few dirty filaments which even a poet could scarcely call hair. This man, of wan complexion,

In this dreary apartment, which faced the north and had no other outlook than to a vine on the opposite wall

and a well in the corner of the yard, Madame Clapart bore herself with the airs of a queen, and moved like a

woman unaccustomed to go anywhere on foot. Often, while thanking Pierrotin, she gave him glances which

would have touched to pity an intelligent observer; from time to time she would slip a twelvesous piece into

his hand, and then her voice was charming. Pierrotin had never seen Oscar, for the reason that the boy was

Here is the sad story which Pierrotin could never have discovered, even by asking for information, as he

sometimes did, from the portress of the house; for that individual knew nothing beyond the fact that the

Claparts paid a rent of two hundred and fifty francs a year, had no servant but a charwoman who came daily

for a few hours in the morning, that Madame Clapart did some of her smaller washing herself, and paid the

postage on her letters daily, being apparently unable to let the sum accumulate.

There does not exist, or rather, there seldom exists, a criminal who is wholly criminal. Neither do we ever

meet with a dishonest nature which is completely dishonest. It is possible for a man to cheat his master to his

own advantage, or rake in for himself alone all the hay in the manger, but, even while laying up capital by

actions more or less illicit, there are few men who never do good ones. If only from selflove, curiosity, or by

way of variety, or by chance, every man has his moment of beneficence; he may call it his error, he may

never do it again, but he sacrifices to Goodness, as the most surly man sacrifices to the Graces once or twice

in his life. If Moreau's faults can ever be excused, it might be on the score of his persistent kindness in

succoring a woman of whose favors he had once been proud, and in whose house he was hidden when in peril

This woman, celebrated under the Directory for her liaison with one of the five kings of that reign, married,

through that allpowerful protection, a purveyor who was making his millions out of the government, and

whom Napoleon ruined in 1802. This man, named Husson, became insane through his sudden fall from

opulence to poverty; he flung himself into the Seine, leaving the beautiful Madame Husson pregnant.

Moreau, very intimately allied with Madame Husson, was at that time condemned to death; he was unable

therefore to marry the widow, being forced to leave France. Madame Husson, then twentytwo years old,

married in her deep distress a government clerk named Clapart, aged twentyseven, who was said to be a

rising man. At that period of our history, government clerks were apt to become persons of importance; for

Napoleon was ever on the lookout for capacity. But Clapart, though endowed by nature with a certain coarse

beauty, proved to have no intelligence. Thinking Madame Husson very rich, he feigned a great passion for

her, and was simply saddled with the impossibility of satisfying either then or in the future the wants she had

acquired in a life of opulence. He filled, very poorly, a place in the Treasury that gave him a salary of

eighteen hundred francs; which was all the new household had to live on. When Moreau returned to France as

the secretary of the Comte de Serizy he heard of Madame Husson's pitiable condition, and he was able,

before his own marriage, to get her an appointment as headwaitingwoman to Madame Mere, the Emperor's

mother. But in spite of that powerful protection Clapart was never promoted; his incapacity was too apparent.

Ruined in 1815 by the fall of the Empire, the brilliant Aspasia of the Directory had no other resources than

Clapart's salary of twelve hundred francs from a clerkship obtained for him through the Comte de Serizy.

Moreau, the only protector of a woman whom he had known in possession of millions, obtained a

halfscholarship for her son, Oscar Husson, at the school of Henri IV.; and he sent her regularly, by Pierrotin,

such supplies from the estate at Presles as he could decently offer to a household in distress.

Oscar was the whole life and all the future of his mother. The poor woman could now be reproached with no

other fault than her exaggerated tenderness for her boy,the betenoire of his stepfather. Oscar was,

unfortunately, endowed by nature with a foolishness his mother did not perceive, in spite of the stepfather's

sarcasms. This foolishness or, to speak more specifically, this overweening conceitso troubled Monsieur

Moreau that he begged Madame Clapart to send the boy down to him for a month that he might study his

character, and find out what career he was fit for. Moreau was really thinking of some day proposing Oscar to

But to give to the devil and to God what respectively belongs to them, perhaps it would be well to show the

causes of Oscar Husson's silly selfconceit, premising that he was born in the household of Madame Mere.

During his early childhood his eyes were dazzled by imperial splendors. His pliant imagination retained the

impression of those gorgeous scenes, and nursed the images of a golden time of pleasure in hopes of

recovering them. The natural boastfulness of schoolboys (possessed of a desire to outshine their mates)

resting on these memories of his childhood was developed in him beyond all measure. It may also have been

that his mother at home dwelt too fondly on the days when she herself was a queen in Directorial Paris. At

any rate, Oscar, who was now leaving school, had been made to bear many humiliations which the paying

pupils put upon those who hold scholarships, unless the scholars are able to impose respect by superior

This mixture of former splendor now departed, of beauty gone, of blind maternal love, of sufferings

heroically borne, made the mother one of those pathetic figures which catch the eye of many an observer in

Incapable, naturally, of understanding the real attachment of Moreau to this woman, or that of the woman for

the man she had saved in 1797, now her only friend, Pierrotin did not think it best to communicate the

suspicion that had entered his head as to some danger which was threatening Moreau. The valet's speech,

"We have enough to do in this world to look after ourselves," returned to his mind, and with it came that

sentiment of obedience to what he called the "chefs de file," the frontrank men in war, and men of rank in

peace. Besides, just now Pierrotin's head was as full of his own stings as there are fivefranc pieces in a

thousand francs. So that the "Very good, madame," "Certainly, madame," with which he replied to the poor

mother, to whom a trip of twenty miles appeared a journey, showed plainly that he desired to get away from

"You will be sure to place the packages so that they cannot get wet if the weather should happen to change."

"I've a hood," replied Pierrotin. "Besides, see, madame, with what care they are being placed."

"Oscar, don't stay more than two weeks, no matter how much they may ask you," continued Madame Clapart,

returning to her son. "You can't please Madame Moreau, whatever you do; besides, you must be home by the

"Above all," she said, in a low voice, "be sure never to speak about servants; keep thinking all the time that

Oscar, like all youths whose vanity is excessively ticklish, seemed annoyed at being lectured on the threshold

"Well, now goodbye, mamma. We shall start soon; there's the horse all harnessed."

The mother, forgetting that she was in the open street, embraced her Oscar, and said, smiling, as she took a

"Tiens! you were forgetting your roll and the chocolate! My child, once more, I repeat, don't take anything at

the inns; they'd make you pay for the slightest thing ten times what it is worth."

Oscar would fain have seen his mother farther off as she stuffed the bread and chocolate into his pocket. The

scene had two witnesses,two young men a few years older than Oscar, better dressed than he, without a

mother hanging on to them, whose actions, dress, and ways all betokened that complete independence which

The words reached Oscar's ears and drove him to say, "Goodbye, mother!" in a tone of terrible impatience.

Let us admit that Madame Clapart spoke too loudly, and seemed to wish to show to those around them her

"What is the matter with you, Oscar?" asked the poor hurt woman. "I don't know what to make of you," she

added in a severe tone, fancying herself able to inspire him with respect,a great mistake made by those

who spoil their children. "Listen, my Oscar," she said, resuming at once her tender voice, "you have a

propensity to talk, and to tell all you know, and all that you don't know; and you do it to show off, with the

foolish vanity of a mere lad. Now, I repeat, endeavor to keep your tongue in check. You are not sufficiently

advanced in life, my treasure, to be able to judge of the persons with whom you may be thrown; and there is

nothing more dangerous than to talk in public conveyances. Besides, in a diligence wellbred persons always

The two young men, who seemed to have walked to the farther end of the establishment, here returned,

making their bootheels tap upon the paved passage of the portecochere. They might have heard the whole

of this maternal homily. So, in order to rid himself of his mother, Oscar had recourse to an heroic measure,

"Mamma," he said, "you are standing in a draught, and you may take cold. Besides, I am going to get into the

The lad must have touched some tender spot, for his mother caught him to her bosom, kissed him as if he

were starting upon a long journey, and went with him to the vehicle with tears in her eyes.

"Don't forget to give five francs to the servants when you come away," she said; "write me three times at least

during the fifteen days; behave properly, and remember all that I have told you. You have linen enough; don't

send any to the wash. And above all, remember Monsieur Moreau's kindness; mind him as you would a

As he got into the coach, Oscar's blue woollen stockings became visible, through the action of his trousers

which drew up suddenly, also the new patch in the said trousers was seen, through the parting of his

coattails. The smiles of the two young men, on whom these signs of an honorable indigence were not lost,

"The first place was engaged for Oscar," said the mother to Pierrotin. "Take the back seat," she said to the

Oh! how Oscar regretted that trouble and sorrow had destroyed his mother's beauty, and that poverty and

selfsacrifice prevented her from being better dressed! One of the young men, the one who wore top boots

and spurs, nudged the other to make him take notice of Oscar's mother, and the other twirled his moustache

Oscar pretended not to hear, the monster! Perhaps Madame Clapart was lacking in tact under the

"Georges, do you like children when travelling?" asked one young man of the other.

"Yes, my good Amaury, if they are weaned, and are named Oscar, and have chocolate."

These speeches were uttered in halftones to allow Oscar to hear them or not hear them as he chose; his

countenance was to be the weather gauge by which the other young traveller could judge how much fun he

might be able to get out of the lad during the journey. Oscar chose not to hear. He looked to see if his mother,

who weighed upon him like a nightmare, was still there, for he felt that she loved him too well to leave him

so quickly. Not only did he involuntarily compare the dress of his travelling companion with his own, but he

felt that his mother's toilet counted for much in the smiles of the two young men.

Instead of that, Amaury remarked to Georges, giving a tap with his cane to the heavy wheel of the coucou:

"And so, my friend, you are really going to trust your future to this fragile bark?"

Oscar gave a sigh as he remarked the jaunty manner in which his companion's hat was stuck on one ear for

the purpose of showing a magnificent head of blond hair beautifully brushed and curled; while he, by order of

his stepfather, had his black hair cut like a clothesbrush across the forehead, and clipped, like a soldier's,

close to the head. The face of the vain lad was round and chubby and bright with the hues of health, while

that of his fellowtraveller was long, and delicate, and pale. The forehead of the latter was broad, and his

chest filled out a waistcoat of cashmere pattern. As Oscar admired the tightfitting irongray trousers and the

overcoat with its frogs and olives clasping the waist, it seemed to him that this romanticlooking stranger,

gifted with such advantages, insulted him by his superiority, just as an ugly woman feels injured by the mere

sight of a pretty one. The click of the stranger's bootheels offended his taste and echoed in his heart. He felt

as hampered by his own clothes (made no doubt at home out of those of his stepfather) as that envied young

The young man turned round. What were Oscar's feelings on beholding a gold chain round his neck, at the

end of which no doubt was a gold watch! From that moment the young man assumed, in Oscar's eyes, the

Living in the rue de la Cerisaie since 1815, taken to and from school by his stepfather, Oscar had no other

points of comparison since his adolescence than the povertystricken household of his mother. Brought up

strictly, by Moreau's advice, he seldom went to the theatre, and then to nothing better than the

AmbiguComique, where his eyes could see little elegance, if indeed the eyes of a child riveted on a

melodrama were likely to examine the audience. His stepfather still wore, after the fashion of the Empire,

his watch in the fob of his trousers, from which there depended over his abdomen a heavy gold chain, ending

in a bunch of heterogeneous ornaments, seals, and a watchkey with a round top and flat sides, on which was

a landscape in mosaic. Oscar, who considered that oldfashioned finery as the "ne plus ultra" of adornment,

was bewildered by the present revelation of superior and negligent elegance. The young man exhibited,

offensively, a pair of spotless gloves, and seemed to wish to dazzle Oscar by twirling with much grace a

Oscar had reached that last quarter of adolescence when little things cause immense joys and immense

miseries,a period when youth prefers misfortune to a ridiculous suit of clothes, and caring nothing for the

real interests of life, torments itself about frivolities, about neckcloths, and the passionate desire to appear a

man. Then the young fellow swells himself out; his swagger is all the more portentous because it is exercised

on nothings. Yet if he envies a fool who is elegantly dressed, he is also capable of enthusiasm over talent, and

of genuine admiration for genius. Such defects as these, when they have no root in the heart, prove only the

exuberance of sap,the richness of the youthful imagination. That a lad of nineteen, an only child, kept

severely at home by poverty, adored by a mother who put upon herself all privations for his sake, should be

moved to envy by a young man of twentytwo in a frogged surtoutcoat silklined, a waist coat of fancy

cashmere, and a cravat slipped through a ring of the worse taste, is nothing more than a peccadillo committed

in all ranks of social life by inferiors who envy those that seem beyond them. Men of genius themselves

But Oscar passed from peccadillo to evil feelings. He felt humiliated; he was angry with the youth he envied,

and there rose in his heart a secret desire to show openly that he himself was as good as the object of his

The two young fellows continued to walk up and own from the gate to the stables, and from the stables to the

gate. Each time they turned they looked at Oscar curled up in his corner of the coucou. Oscar, persuaded that

their jokes and laughter concerned himself, affected the utmost indifference. He began to hum the chorus of a

song lately brought into vogue by the liberals, which ended with the words, "'Tis Voltaire's fault, 'tis

This exasperated Oscar, who bounded up, pulled out the wooden "back," and called to Pierrotin:

"Presently," said that functionary, who was standing, whip in hand, and gazing toward the rue d'Enghien.

At this moment the scene was enlivened by the arrival of a young man accompanied by a true "gamin," who

was followed by a porter dragging a handcart. The young man came up to Pierrotin and spoke to him

confidentially, on which the latter nodded his head, and called to his own porter. The man ran out and helped

to unload the little handcart, which contained, besides two trunks, buckets, brushes, boxes of singular shape,

and an infinity of packages and utensils which the youngest of the newcomers, who had climbed into the

imperial, stowed away with such celerity that Oscar, who happened to be smiling at his mother, now standing

on the other side of the street, saw none of the paraphernalia which might have revealed to him the profession

The gamin, who must have been sixteen years of age, wore a gray blouse buckled round his waist by a

polished leather belt. His cap, jauntily perched on the side of his head, seemed the sign of a merry nature, and

so did the picturesque disorder of the curly brown hair which fell upon his shoulders. A blacksilk cravat

drew a line round his very white neck, and added to the vivacity of his bright gray eyes. The animation of his

brown and rosy face, the moulding of his rather large lips, the ears detached from his head, his slightly

turnedup nose, in fact, all the details of his face proclaimed the lively spirit of a Figaro, and the careless

gayety of youth, while the vivacity of his gesture and his mocking eye revealed an intellect already developed

by the practice of a profession adopted very early in life. As he had already some claims to personal value,

this child, made man by Art or by vocation, seemed indifferent to the question of costume; for he looked at

his boots, which had not been polished, with a quizzical air, and searched for the spots on his brown Holland

The glance of the latter, showed authority over his adept, in whom a practised eye would at once have

recognized the joyous pupil of a painter, called in the argot of the studios a "rapin."

"Behave yourself, Mistigris," said his master, giving him the nickname which the studio had no doubt

The master was a slight and pale young man, with extremely thick black hair, worn in a disorder that was

actually fantastic. But this abundant mass of hair seemed necessary to an enormous head, whose vast

forehead proclaimed a precocious intellect. A strained and harassed face, too original to be ugly, was

hollowed as if this noticeable young man suffered from some chronic malady, or from privations caused by

poverty (the most terrible of all chronic maladies), or from griefs too recent to be forgotten. His clothing,

analogous, with due allowance, to that of Mistigris, consisted of a shabby surtout coat, Americangreen in

color, much worn, but clean and wellbrushed; a black waistcoat buttoned to the throat, which almost

concealed a scarlet neckerchief; and trousers, also black and even more worn than the coat, flapping his thin

legs. In addition, a pair of very muddy boots indicated that he had come on foot and from some distance to

the coach office. With a rapid look this artist seized the whole scene of the Lion d'Argent, the stables, the

courtyard, the various lights and shades, and the details; then he looked at Mistigris, whose satirical glance

"We seem to have got here too early," pursued Mistigris. "Couldn't we get a mouthful somewhere? My

"Have we time to get a cup of coffee?" said the artist, in a gentle voice, to Pierrotin.

"Good; that means we have a quarter of an hour," remarked Mistigris, with the innate genius for observation

The pair disappeared. Nine o'clock was striking in the hotel kitchen. Georges thought it just and reasonable to

"Hey! my friend; when a man is blessed with such wheels as these (striking the clumsy tires with his cane) he

ought at least to have the merit of punctuality. The deuce! one doesn't get into that thing for pleasure; I have

business that is devilishly pressing or I wouldn't trust my bones to it. And that horse, which you call Rougeot,

"We are going to harness Bichette while those gentlemen take their coffee," replied Pierrotin. "Go and ask,

"Over the way, at number 50. He couldn't get a place in the Beaumont diligence," said Pierrotin, still

speaking to his porter and apparently making no answer to his customer; then he disappeared himself in

Georges, after shaking hands with his friend, got into the coach, handling with an air of great importance a

portfolio which he placed beneath the cushion of the seat. He took the opposite corner to that of Oscar, on the

Just as Pierrotin reappeared, having harnessed Bichette, the porter returned with a stout man in tow, whose

weight could not have been less than two hundred and fifty pounds at the very least. Pere Leger belonged to

the species of farmer which has a square back, a protuberant stomach, a powdered pigtail, and wears a little

coat of blue linen. His white gaiters, coming above the knee, were fastened round the ends of his velveteen

breeches and secured by silver buckles. His hobnailed shoes weighed two pounds each. In his hand, he held

a small reddish stick, much polished, with a large knob, which was fastened round his wrist by a thong of

"And you are called Pere Leger?" asked Georges, very seriously, as the farmer attempted to put a foot on the

"At your service," replied the farmer, looking in and showing a face like that of Louis XVIII., with fat,

rubicund cheeks, from between which issued a nose that in any other face would have seemed enormous. His

smiling eyes were sunken in rolls of fat. "Come, a helping hand, my lad!" he said to Pierrotin.

The farmer was hoisted in by the united efforts of Pierrotin and the porter, to cries of "Houp la! hi! ha! hoist!"

"Where's your other horse?" demanded Georges. "Is it as mythical as the third posthorse."

"There she is," said Pierrotin, pointing to the little mare, who was coming along alone.

"Oh! she's good, that little mare," said the farmer, who by this time was seated. "Your servant, gentlemen.

"We are going to start," replied Pierrotin. "Now, then, make ready," he said to the porter, who began

Pierrotin took Rougeot by the bridle and gave that guttural cry, "Ket, ket!" to tell the two animals to collect

their energy; on which, though evidently stiff, they pulled the coach to the door of the Lion d'Argent. After

which manoeuvre, which was purely preparatory, Pierrotin gazed up the rue d'Enghien and then disappeared,

"Ah ca! is he subject to such attacks,that master of yours?" said Mistigris, addressing the porter.

"He has gone to fetch his feed from the stable," replied the porter, well versed in all the usual tricks to keep

"Well, after all," said Mistigris, "'art is long, but life is short' to Bichette."

At this particular epoch, a fancy for mutilating or transposing proverbs reigned in the studios. It was thought

a triumph to find changes of letters, and sometimes of words, which still kept the semblance of the proverb

[*] It is plainly impossible to translate many of these proverbs and put any fun or meaning into them.Tr.

Pierrotin here returned, bringing with him the Comte de Serizy, who had come through the rue de l'Echiquier,

"Pere Leger," said Pierrotin, looking into the coach, "will you give your place to Monsieur le comte? That

"We sha'n't be off for an hour if you go on this way," cried Georges. "We shall have to take down this

infernal bar, which cost such trouble to put up. Why should everybody be made to move for the man who

comes last? We all have a right to the places we took. What place has monsieur engaged? Come, find that

out! Haven't you a waybook, a register, or something? What place has Monsieur Lecomte engaged?

"Monsieur le comte," said Pierrotin, visibly troubled, "I am afraid you will be uncomfortable."

"Why didn't you keep better count of us?" said Mistigris. "'Short counts make good ends.'"

Monsieur de Serizy was evidently taken by all the persons in the coach for a bourgeois of the name of

"Come, Mistigris," said the master to his rapin, "remember the respect you owe to age; you don't know how

shockingly old you may be yourself some day. 'Travel deforms youth.' Give your place to monsieur."

Mistigris opened the leathern curtain and jumped out with the agility of a frog leaping into the water.

"I thank you very much, monsieur," said the count to Mistigris's master, next to whom he now sat.

The minister of State cast a sagacious glance round the interior of the coach, which greatly affronted both

"When persons want to be master of a coach, they should engage all the places," remarked Georges.

Certain now of his incognito, the Comte de Serizy made no reply to this observation, but assumed the air of a

"Suppose you were late, wouldn't you be glad that the coach waited for you?" said the farmer to the two

Pierrotin still looked up and down the street, whip in hand, apparently reluctant to mount to the hard seat

"The old fellow doesn't know much," whispered Georges to Oscar, who was delighted at this apparent union

Whereupon Pierrotin shouted a certain "Hi!" in which Bichette and Rougeot recognized a definitive

resolution, and they both sprang toward the rise of the faubourg at a pace which was soon to slacken.

The count had a red face, of a burning red all over, on which were certain inflamed portions which his

snowwhite hair brought out into full relief. To any but heedless youths, this complexion would have

revealed a constant inflammation of the blood, produced by incessant labor. These blotches and pimples so

injured the naturally noble air of the count that careful examination was needed to find in his green gray

eyes the shrewdness of the magistrate, the wisdom of a statesman, and the knowledge of a legislator. His face

was flat, and the nose seemed to have been depressed into it. The hat hid the grace and beauty of his

forehead. In short, there was enough to amuse those thoughtless youths in the odd contrasts of the silvery

hair, the burning face, and the thick, tufted eyebrows which were still jet black.

The count wore a long blue overcoat, buttoned in military fashion to the throat, a white cravat around his

neck, cotton wool in his ears, and a shirtcollar high enough to make a large square patch of white on each

cheek. His black trousers covered his boots, the toes of which were barely seen. He wore no decoration in his

buttonhole, and doeskin gloves concealed his hands. Nothing about him betrayed to the eyes of youth a peer

Pere Leger had never seen the count, who, on his side, knew the former only by name. When the count, as he

got into the carriage, cast the glance about him which affronted Georges and Oscar, he was, in reality,

looking for the headclerk of his notary (in case he had been forced, like himself, to take Pierrotin's vehicle),

intending to caution him instantly about his own incognito. But feeling reassured by the appearance of Oscar,

and that of Pere Leger, and, above all, by the quasimilitary air, the waxed moustaches, and the general look

of an adventurer that distinguished Georges, he concluded that his note had reached his notary, Alexandre

"Pere Leger," said Pierrotin, when they reached the steep hill of the faubourg SaintDenis by the rue de la

"Goodness! if this is how we are going, we shall do fourteen miles in fifteen days!" cried Georges.

"Ten louis for you if you keep the secret of my being here as I told you before," said the count in a low voice,

"Oh, my thousand francs!" thought Pierrotin as he winked an eye at Monsieur de Serizy, which meant, "Rely

"Look here, Pierrotin, since Pierrotin you are," cried Georges, when the passengers were once more stowed

away in the vehicle, "if you don't mean to go faster than this, say so! I'll pay my fare and take a posthorse at

"Oh! he'll go well enough," said Pere Leger. "Besides, the distance isn't great."

"Well, you are not wheeling the Pope in this old barrow of yours," said Georges, "so, get on."

"Perhaps he's afraid of shaking monsieur," said Mistigris looking round at the count. "But you shouldn't have

"Oh! be easy," said Pere Leger; "we are sure to get to La Chapelle by midday,"La Chapelle being the

Those who travel in public conveyances know that the persons thus united by chance do not immediately

have anything to say to one another; unless under special circumstances, conversation rarely begins until they

have gone some distance. This period of silence is employed as much in mutual examination as in settling

into their places. Minds need to get their equilibrium as much as bodies. When each person thinks he has

discovered the age, profession, and character of his companions, the most talkative member of the company

begins, and the conversation gets under way with all the more vivacity because those present feel a need of

That is how things happen in French stagecoaches. In other countries customs are very different.

Englishmen pique themselves on never opening their lips; Germans are melancholy in a vehicle; Italians too

wary to talk; Spaniards have no public conveyances; and Russians no roads. There is no amusement except in

the lumbering diligences of France, that gabbling and indiscreet country, where every one is in a hurry to

laugh and show his wit, and where jest and epigram enliven all things, even the poverty of the lower classes

and the weightier cares of the solid bourgeois. In a coach there is no police to check tongues, and legislative

assemblies have set the fashion of public discussion. When a young man of twentytwo, like the one named

Georges, is clever and lively, he is much tempted, especially under circumstances like the present, to abuse

In the first place, Georges had soon decided that he was the superior human being of the party there

assembled. He saw in the count a manufacturer of the secondclass, whom he took, for some unknown

reason, to be a chandler; in the shabby young man accompanied by Mistigris, a fellow of no account; in Oscar

a ninny, and in Pere Leger, the fat farmer, an excellent subject to hoax. Having thus looked over the ground,

"Let me see," he thought to himself, as the coucou went down the hill from La Chapelle to the plain of

SaintDenis, "shall I pass myself off for Etienne or Beranger? No, these idiots don't know who they are.

Carbonaro? the deuce! I might get myself arrested. Suppose I say I'm the son of Marshal Ney? Pooh! what

could I tell them?about the execution of my father? It wouldn't be funny. Better be a disguised Russian

prince and make them swallow a lot of stuff about the Emperor Alexander. Or I might be Cousin, and talk

philosophy; oh, couldn't I perplex 'em! But no, that shabby fellow with the tousled head looks to me as if he

had jogged his way through the Sorbonne. What a pity! I can mimic an Englishman so perfectly I might have

pretended to be Lord Byron, travelling incognito. Sapristi! I'll command the troops of Ali, pacha of Janina!"

During this mental monologue, the coucou rolled through clouds of dust rising on either side of it from that

"Henry IV. is dead!" retorted his master. "If you'd say it was scented with vanilla that would be emitting a

"You think you're witty," replied Mistigris. "Well, it IS like vanilla at times."

"I said in the Levant, from which I have just returned," continued Georges, "the dust smells very good; but

"Has monsieur lately returned from the Levant?" said Mistigris, maliciously. "He isn't much tanned by the

"Oh! I've just left my bed after an illness of three months, from the germ, so the doctors said, of suppressed

"Have you had the plague?" cried the count, with a gesture of alarm. "Pierrotin, stop!"

"Go on, Pierrotin," said Mistigris. "Didn't you hear him say it was inward, his plague?" added the rapin,

talking back to Monsieur de Serizy. "It isn't catching; it only comes out in conversation."

"Mistigris! if you interfere again I'll have you put off into the road," said his master. "And so," he added,

"Yes, monsieur; first to Egypt, then to Greece, where I served under Ali, pacha of Janina, with whom I had a

terrible quarrel. There's no enduring those climates long; besides, the emotions of all kinds in Oriental life

"Twentynine," replied Georges, whereupon all the passengers looked at him. "At eighteen I enlisted as a

private for the famous campaign of 1813; but I was present at only one battle, that of Hanau, where I was

promoted sergeantmajor. In France, at Montereau, I won the rank of sublieutenant, and was decorated

"The cross of 'ceuxci'? No, thank you! Besides, what man of any breeding would wear his decorations in

travelling? There's monsieur," he said, motioning to the Comte de Serizy. "I'll bet whatever you like"

"Betting whatever you like means, in France, betting nothing at all," said Mistigris's master.

"I'll bet whatever you like," repeated Georges, incisively, "that monsieur here is covered with stars."

"Well," said the count, laughing, "I have the grand cross of the Legion of honor, that of Saint Andrew of

Russia, that of the Prussian Eagle, that of the Annunciation of Sardinia, and the Golden Fleece."

"Hey! that brickcolored old fellow goes it strong!" whispered Georges to Oscar. "What was I saying?oh!

"A man to whom I owe many obligations," replied the count, with a silly expression that was admirably

"Worse than that; he chewed and smoked," continued Georges. "I saw him smoking, in a queer way, too, at

Waterloo, when Marshal Soult took him round the waist and flung him into his carriage, just as he had seized

"Yes, young man, I did the campaign of 1815. I was a captain at Mont SaintJean, and I retired to the Loire,

after we were all disbanded. Faith! I was disgusted with France; I couldn't stand it. In fact, I should certainly

have got myself arrested; so off I went, with two or three dashing fellows,Selves, Besson, and others, who

are now in Egypt,and we entered the service of pacha Mohammed; a queer sort of fellow he was, too!

Once a tobacco merchant in the bazaars, he is now on the highroad to be a sovereign prince. You've all seen

him in that picture by Horace Vernet,'The Massacre of the Mameluks.' What a handsome fellow he was!

But I wouldn't give up the religion of my fathers and embrace Islamism; all the more because the abjuration

required a surgical operation which I hadn't any fancy for. Besides, nobody respects a renegade. Now if they

had offered me a hundred thousand francs a year, perhapsand yet, no! The pacha did give me a thousand

"How much is that?" asked Oscar, who was listening to Georges with all his ears.

"Oh! not much. A talaro is, as you might say, a fivefranc piece. But faith! I got no compensation for the

vices I contracted in that God forsaken country, if country it is. I can't live now without smoking a narghile

"Egypt? Oh! Egypt is all sand," replied Georges, by no means taken aback. "There's nothing green but the

valley of the Nile. Draw a green line down a sheet of yellow paper, and you have Egypt. But those

Egyptiansfellahs they are calledhave an immense advantage over us. There are no gendarmes in that

"Not as many as you think for," replied Georges. "There are many more Abyssinians, and Giaours, and

Vechabites, Bedouins, and Cophs. But all that kind of animal is very uninteresting, and I was glad enough to

embark on a Genoese polacca which was loading for the Ionian Islands with gunpowder and munitions for

Ali de Tebelen. You know, don't you, that the British sell powder and munitions of war to all the world,

Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante we were to skirt the coasts of Greece

and tack about, on and off. Now it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am, such as

you see me, the grandson of the famous CzerniGeorges who made war upon the Porte, and, instead of

crushing it, as he meant to do, got crushed himself. His son took refuge in the house of the French consul at

Smyrna, and he afterwards died in Paris, leaving my mother pregnant with me, his seventh child. Our

property was all stolen by friends of my grandfather; in fact, we were ruined. My mother, who lived on her

diamonds, which she sold one by one, married, in 1799, my stepfather, Monsieur Yung, a purveyor. But my

mother is dead, and I have quarrelled with my stepfather, who, between ourselves, is a blackguard; he is still

alive, but I never see him. That's why, in despair, left all to myself, I went off to the wars as a private in 1813.

Well, to go back to the time I returned to Greece; you wouldn't believe with what joy old Ali Tebelen

received the grandson of Czerni Georges. Here, of course, I call myself simply Georges. The pacha gave me

"How is it that you don't know," replied Georges, "that only the Sultan makes pachas, and that my friend

Tebelen (for we were as friendly as Bourbons) was in rebellion against the Padishah! You know, or you don't

know, that the true title of the Grand Seignior is Padishah, and not Sultan or Grand Turk. You needn't think

that a harem is much of a thing; you might as well have a herd of goats. The women are horribly stupid down

"The women of the harem couldn't speak a word of French, and that language is indispensable for talking. Ali

gave me five legitimate wives and ten slaves; that's equivalent to having none at all at Janina. In the East, you

must know, it is thought very bad style to have wives and women. They have them, just as we have Voltaire

and Rousseau; but who ever opens his Voltaire or his Rousseau? Nobody. But, for all that, the highest style is

to be jealous. They sew a woman up in a sack and fling her into the water on the slightest suspicion,that's

They were now entering SaintDenis, and Pierrotin presently drew up before the door of a tavern where were

sold the famous cheesecakes of that place. All the travellers got out. Puzzled by the apparent truth mingled

with Georges' inventions, the count returned to the coucou when the others had entered the house, and looked

beneath the cushion for the portfolio which Pierrotin told him that enigmatical youth had placed there. On it

he read the words in gilt letters: "Maitre Crottat, notary." The count at once opened it, and fearing, with some

reason, that Pere Leger might be seized with the same curiosity, he took out the deed of sale for the farm at

Moulineaux, put it into his coat pocket, and entered the inn to keep an eye on the travellers.

"This Georges is neither more nor less than Crottat's second clerk," thought he. "I shall pay my compliments

From the respectful glances of Pere Leger and Oscar, Georges perceived that he had made for himself two

fervent admirers. Accordingly, he now posed as a great personage; paid for their cheesecakes, and ordered

for each a glass of Alicante. He offered the same to Mistigris and his master, who refused with smiles; but the

"Oh! monsieur," said Mistigris' master, "I am not blessed, like you, with an illustrious name; and I have not

At this moment the count, hastening into the huge innkitchen lest his absence should excite inquiry, entered

"I am only a poor painter lately returned from Rome, where I went at the cost of the government, after

"Hey! bourgeois, may I offer you a glass of Alicante and some cheese cakes?" said Georges to the count.

"Thank you," replied the latter. "I never leave home without taking my cup of coffee and cream."

"Don't you eat anything between meals? How bourgeois, Marais, Place Royale, that is!" cried Georges.

"When he 'blagued' just now about his crosses, I thought there was something in him," whispered the Eastern

hero to the painter. "However, we'll set him going on his decorations, the old tallowchandler! Come, my

lad," he added, calling to Oscar, "drink me down the glass poured out for the chandler; that will start your

Oscar, anxious to play the man, swallowed the second glass of wine, and ate three more cheesecakes.

"It is all the better," said Georges, "because it comes from Bercy. I've been to Alicante myself, and I know

that this wine no more resembles what is made there than my arm is like a windmill. Our made up wines are

a great deal better than the natural ones in their own country. Come, Pierrotin, take a glass! It is a great pity

"Forward, march!" cried Pierrotin, amid a mighty cracking of whips, after the travellers were again boxed up.

It was now eleven o'clock. The weather, which had been cloudy, cleared; the breeze swept off the mists, and

the blue of the sky appeared in spots; so that when the coucou trundled along the narrow strip of road from

SaintDenis to Pierrefitte, the sun had fairly drunk up the last floating vapors of the diaphanous veil which

"Well, now, tell us why you left your friend the pacha," said Pere Leger, addressing Georges.

"He was a very singular scamp," replied Georges, with an air that hid a multitude of mysteries. "He put me in

"At that time Ali Tebelen wanted to rid himself of Chosrew pacha, another queer chap! You call him, here,

Chaureff; but the name is pronounced, in Turkish, Cosserew. You must have read in the newspapers how old

Ali drubbed Chosrew, and soundly, too, faith! Well, if it hadn't been for me, Ali Tebelen himself would have

bit the dust two days earlier. I was at the right wing, and I saw Chosrew, an old sly boots, thinking to force

our centre,ranks closed, stiff, swift, fine movement a la Murat. Good! I take my time; then I charge,

double quick, and cut his line in two,you understand? Ha! ha! after the affair was over, Ali kissed me"

"After that," continued Georges, "Ali gave me yataghans, and carbines, and scimetars, and whatnot. But

when we got back to his capital he made me propositions, wanted me to drown a wife, and make a slave of

myself,Orientals are so queer! But I thought I'd had enough of it; for, after all, you know, Ali was a rebel

against the Porte. So I concluded I had better get off while I could. But I'll do Monsieur Tebelen the justice to

say that he loaded me with presents,diamonds, ten thousand talari, one thousand gold coins, a beautiful

Greek girl for groom, a little Circassian for a mistress, and an Arab horse! Yes, Ali Tebelen, pacha of Janina,

is too little known; he needs an historian. It is only in the East one meets with such iron souls, who can nurse

a vengeance twenty years and accomplish it some fine morning. He had the most magnificent white beard

"Ha! that's it! you may well ask that! Those fellows down there haven't any Grand Livre nor any Bank of

France. So I was forced to carry off my windfalls in a felucca, which was captured by the Turkish

HighAdmiral himself. Such as you see me here today, I came very near being impaled at Smyrna. Indeed,

if it hadn't been for Monsieur de Riviere, our ambassador, who was there, they'd have taken me for an

accomplice of Ali pacha. I saved my head, but, to tell the honest truth, all the rest, the ten thousand talari, the

thousand gold pieces, and the fine weapons, were all, yes all, drunk up by the thirsty treasury of the Turkish

admiral. My position was the more perilous because that very admiral happened to be Chosrew pacha. After I

routed him, the fellow had managed to obtain a position which is equal to that of our Admiral of the Fleet"

"But I thought he was in the cavalry?" said Pere Leger, who had followed the narrative with the deepest

"Dear me! how little the East is understood in the French provinces!" cried Georges. "Monsieur, I'll explain

the Turks to you. You are a farmer; the Padishah (that's the Sultan) makes you a marshal; if you don't fulfil

your functions to his satisfaction, so much the worse for you, he cuts your head off; that's his way of

dismissing his functionaries. A gardener is made a prefect; and the prime minister comes down to be a

footboy. The Ottomans have no system of promotion and no hierarchy. From a cavalry officer Chosrew

simply became a naval officer. Sultan Mahmoud ordered him to capture Ali by sea; and he did get hold of

him, assisted by those beggarly Englishwho put their paw on most of the treasure. This Chosrew, who had

not forgotten the ridinglesson I gave him, recognized me. You understand, my goose was cooked, oh,

brown! when it suddenly came into my head to claim protection as a Frenchman and a troubadour from

Monsieur de Riviere. The ambassador, enchanted to find something to show him off, demanded that I should

be set at liberty. The Turks have one good trait in their nature; they are as willing to let you go as they are to

cut your head off; they are indifferent to everything. The French consul, charming fellow, friend of Chosrew,

made him give back two thousand of the talari, and, consequently, his name is, as I may say, graven on my

"What was his name?" asked Monsieur de Serizy; and a look of some surprise passed over his face as

Georges named, correctly, one of our most distinguished consulgenerals who happened at that time to be

"I assisted," added Georges, "at the execution of the Governor of Smyrna, whom the Sultan had ordered

Chosrew to put to death. It was one of the most curious things I ever saw, though I've seen many, I'll tell

you about it when we stop for breakfast. From Smyrna I crossed to Spain, hearing there was a revolution

there. I went straight to Mina, who appointed me as his aidedecamp with the rank of colonel. I fought for

the constitutional cause, which will certainly be defeated when we enter Spainas we undoubtedly shall,

"You, a French soldier!" said the count, sternly. "You show extraordinary confidence in the discretion of

"Are you aware, Colonel Georges," continued the count, "that the Court of Peers is at this very time inquiring

into a conspiracy which has made the government extremely severe in its treatment of French soldiers who

bear arms against France, and who deal in foreign intrigues for the purpose of overthrowing our legitimate

On hearing this stern admonition the painter turned red to his ears and looked at Mistigris, who seemed

"If," continued the count, "I were a magistrate, it would be my duty to order the gendarmes at Pierrefitte to

arrest the aidedecamp of Mina, and to summon all present in this vehicle to testify to his words."

This speech stopped Georges' narrative all the more surely, because at this moment the coucou reached the

guardhouse of a brigade of gendarmerie,the white flag floating, as the orthodox saying is, upon the

"Colonel," cried Leger, who was a good deal disturbed by the count's outburst, and wanted to change the

conversation, "in all these countries where you have been, what sort of farming do they do? How do they

"Well, in the first place, my good fellow, you must understand, they are too busy cropping off each others'

"They have a way of cultivating which you will think very queer. They don't cultivate at all; that's their style

of farming. The Turks and the Greeks, they eat onions or rise. They get opium from poppies, and it gives

them a fine revenue. Then they have tobacco, which grows of itself, famous latakiah! and dates! and all kinds

of sweet things that don't need cultivation. It is a country full of resources and commerce. They make fine

"But," persisted Leger, "if the rugs are made of wool they must come from sheep; and to have sheep you must

"Well, there may be something of that sort," replied Georges. "But their chief crop, rice, grows in the water.

As for me, I have only been along the coasts and seen the parts that are devastated by war. Besides, I have the

"Oh! the taxes are heavy; they take all a man has, and leave him the rest. The pacha of Egypt was so struck

with the advantages of that system, that, when I came away he was on the point of organizing his own

"How?" said Georges. "Why, agents go round and take all the harvests, and leave the fellahs just enough to

live on. That's a system that does away with stamped papers and bureaucracy, the curse of France, hein?"

"Right? why it is a land of despotism. They haven't any rights. Don't you know the fine definition

Montesquieu gives of despotism. 'Like the savage, it cuts down the tree to gather the fruits.' They don't tax,

"And that's what our rulers are trying to bring us to. 'Tax vobiscum,' no, thank you!" said Mistigris.

"But that is what we ARE coming to," said the count. "Therefore, those who own land will do well to sell it.

Monsieur Schinner must have seen how things are tending in Italy, where the taxes are enormous."

"Corpo di Bacco! the Pope is laying it on heavily," replied Schinner. "But the people are used to it. Besides,

Italians are so goodnatured that if you let 'em murder a few travellers along the highways they're contented."

"I see, Monsieur Schinner," said the count, "that you are not wearing the decoration you obtained in 1819; it

"Well, with me," said the artist, "the case is different. It isn't on account of fashion; but I don't want to be

recognized. Have the goodness not to betray me, monsieur; I am supposed to be a little painter of no

consequence,a mere decorator. I'm on may way to a chateau where I mustn't rouse the slightest suspicion."

Oscar, who was writhing in his skin at being a nobody and having nothing to say, gazed at Colonel

CzerniGeorges and at the famous painter Schinner, and wondered how he could transform himself into

somebody. But a youth of nineteen, kept at home all his life, and going for two weeks only into the country,

what could he be, or do, or say? However, the Alicante had got into his head, and his vanity was boiling in

his veins; so when the famous Schinner allowed a romantic adventure to be guessed at in which the danger

seemed as great as the pleasure, he fastened his eyes, sparkling with wrath and envy, upon that hero.

"Yes," said the count, with a credulous air, "a man must love a woman well to make such sacrifices."

"Don't you know, my little friend, that a ceiling painted by so great a master as yours is worth its weight in

gold?" replied the count. "If the civil list paid you, as it did, thirty thousand francs for each of those rooms in

the Louvre," he continued, addressing Schinner, "a bourgeois,as you call us in the studiosought

certainly to pay you twenty thousand. Whereas, if you go to this chateau as a humble decorator, you will not

"The money is not the greatest loss," said Mistigris. "The work is sure to be a masterpiece, but he can't sign it,

"Ah! I'd return all my crosses to the sovereigns who gave them to me for the devotion that youth can win,"

"That's just it!" said Mistigris, "when one's young, one's loved; plenty of love, plenty of women; but they do

"What does Madame Schinner say to all this?" pursued the count; "for I believe you married, out of love, the

beautiful Adelaide de Rouville, the protegee of old Admiral de Kergarouet; who, by the bye, obtained for you

"So that's the morality of studios, is it?" cried the count, with an air of great simplicity.

"Is the morality of courts where you got those decorations of yours any better?" said Schinner, recovering his

selfpossession, upset for the moment by finding out how much the count knew of Schinner's life as an artist.

"I never asked for any of my orders," said the count. "I believe I have loyally earned them."

The count was resolved not to betray himself; he assumed an air of goodhumored interest in the country,

and looked up the valley of Groslay as the coucou took the road to SaintBrice, leaving that to Chantilly on

"Is Rome as fine as they say it is?" said Georges, addressing the great painter.

"Rome is fine only to those who love it; a man must have a passion for it to enjoy it. As a city, I prefer

"Faith, yes!" cried Mistigris; "if it hadn't been for me you'd have been gobbled up. It was that

mischiefmaking tomfool, Lord Byron, who got you into the scrape. Oh! wasn't he raging, that buffoon of

"But you must own, all the same, that you were glad enough I knew how to box," said Mistigris.

From time to time, Pierrotin exchanged sly glances with the count, which might have made less

"Lords, pachas, and thirtythousandfranc ceilings!" he cried. "I seem to be driving sovereigns. What

"It is a lucky day for me," continued Pierrotin; "for you know, Pere Leger, about my beautiful new coach on

which I have paid an advance of two thousand francs? Well, those dogs of carriagebuilders, to whom I have

to pay two thousand five hundred francs more, won't take fifteen hundred down, and my note for a thousand

for two months! Those vultures want it all. Who ever heard of being so stiff with a man in business these

eight years, and the father of a family?making me run the risk of losing everything, carriage and money

too, if I can't find before tomorrow night that miserable last thousand! Hue, Bichette! They won't play that

"Well, you have only eight hundred now to get," remarked the count, who considered this moan, addressed to

"You must have seen many fine ceilings in Venice," resumed the count, addressing Schinner.

"I was too much in love to take any notice of what seemed to me then mere trifles," replied Schinner. "But I

was soon cured of that folly, for it was in the Venetian statesin Dalmatiathat I received a cruel lesson."

"Well, if you have been there, you know that all the people at that end of the Adriatic are pirates, rovers,

Hearing the right name given, the count, who had been sent by Napoleon on one occasion to the Illyrian

"The affair happened in that town where they make maraschino," continued Schinner, seeming to search for a

"You are right," said the painter. "I had gone there to look at the country, for I adore scenery. I've longed a

score of times to paint landscape, which no one, as I think, understands but Mistigris, who will some day

"But," exclaimed the count, "if he reproduces one of them won't that be enough?"

"If you persist in interrupting, monsieur," said Oscar, "we shall never get on."

"And Monsieur Schinner was not addressing himself to you in particular," added Georges.

"'Tisn't polite to interrupt," said Mistigris, sententiously, "but we all do it, and conversation would lose a great

deal if we didn't scatter little condiments while exchanging our reflections. Therefore, continue, agreeable old

gentleman, to lecture us, if you like. It is done in the best society, and you know the proverb: 'we must 'owl

"I had heard marvellous things of Dalmatia," resumed Schinner, "so I went there, leaving Mistigris in Venice

"Parbleu!" said Schinner; "the fortifications count for much in my adventure. At Zara there are a great many

apothecaries. I lodged with one. In foreign countries everybody makes a principal business of letting

lodgings; all other trades are accessory. In the evening, linen changed, I sat in my balcony. In the opposite

balcony I saw a woman; oh! such a woman! Greek,THAT TELLS ALL! The most beautiful creature in the

town; almond eyes, lids that dropped like curtains, lashes like a paintbrush, a face with an oval to drive

Raffaelle mad, a skin of the most delicious coloring, tints wellblended, velvety! and hands, oh!"

"La, la!" retorted Mistigris; "'an ounce o' paint is worth a pound of swagger.'"

"And such a costume! pure Greek!" continued Schinner. "Conflagration of soul! you understand? Well, I

questioned my Diafoirus; and he told me that my neighbor was named Zena. Changed my linen. The

husband, an old villain, in order to marry Zena, paid three hundred thousand francs to her father and mother,

so celebrated was the beauty of that beautiful creature, who was truly the most beautiful girl in all Dalmatia,

Illyria, Adriatica, and other places. In those parts they buy their wives without seeing them"

"There are nights when my sleep is still illuminated by the eyes of Zena," continued Schinner. "The husband

was sixtynine years of age, and jealous! not as a tiger, for they say of a tiger, 'jealous as a Dalmatian'; and

my man was worse than A Dalmatian, one Dalmatian,he was three and a half Dalmatians at the very least;

he was an Uscoque, tricoque, archicoque in a bicoque of a paltry little place like Zara"

"After being a corsair, and probably a pirate, he thought no more of spitting a Christian on his dagger than I

did of spitting on the ground," continued Schinner. "So that was how the land lay. The old wretch had

millions, and was hideous with the loss of an ear some pacha had cut off, and the want of an eye left I don't

know where. 'Never,' said the little Diafoirus, 'never does he leave his wife, never for a second.' 'Perhaps

she'll want your services, and I could go in your clothes; that's a trick that has great success in our theatres,' I

told him. Well, it would take too long to tell you all the delicious moments of that lifetimeto wit, three

dayswhich I passed exchanging looks with Zena, and changing linen every day. It was all the more

violently titillating because the slightest motion was significant and dangerous. At last it must have dawned

upon Zena's mind that none but a Frenchman and an artist was daring enough to make eyes at her in the midst

of the perils by which she was surrounded; and as she hated her hideous pirate, she answered my glances with

delightful ogles fit to raise a man to the summit of Paradise without pulleys. I attained to the height of Don

Quixote; I rose to exaltation! and I cried: 'The monster may kill me, but I'll go, I'll go!' I gave up landscape

and studied the ignoble dwelling of the Uscoque. That night, changed linen, and put on the most perfumed

"Well, you're a bold dog," cried farmer Leger. "I should have kept out of it myself."

"Especially as you could never have got through the doorway," replied Schinner. "So in I went," he resumed,

"and I found two hands stretched out to meet mine. I said nothing, for those hands, soft as the peel of an

onion, enjoined me to silence. A whisper breathed into my ear, 'He sleeps!' Then, as we were sure that

nobody would see us, we went to walk, Zena and I, upon the ramparts, but accompanied, if you please, by a

duenna, as hideous as an old portress, who didn't leave us any more than our shadow; and I couldn't persuade

Madame Pirate to send her away. The next night we did the same thing, and again I wanted to get rid of the

old woman, but Zena resisted. As my sweet love spoke only Greek, and I Venetian, we couldn't understand

each other, and so we quarrelled. I said to myself, in changing linen, 'As sure as fate, the next time there'll be

no old woman, and we can make it all up with the language of love.' Instead of which, fate willed that that old

woman should save my life! You'll hear how. The weather was fine, and, not to create suspicion, I took a turn

at landscape,this was after our quarrel was made up, you understand. After walking along the ramparts for

some time, I was coming tranquilly home with my hands in my pockets, when I saw the street crowded with

people. Such a crowd! like that for an execution. It fell upon me; I was seized, garroted, gagged, and guarded

by the police. Ah! you don't knowand I hope you never may knowwhat it is to be taken for a murderer

by a maddened populace which stones you and howls after you from end to end of the principal street of a

town, shouting for your death! Ah! those eyes were so many flames, all mouths were a single curse, while

from the volume of that burning hatred rose the fearful cry: 'To death! to death! down with the murderer!'"

"So those Dalmatians spoke our language, did they?" said the count. "I observe you relate the scene as if it

"Well," continued Schinner, "when I was brought into court in presence of the magistrates, I learned that the

cursed corsair was dead, poisoned by Zena. I'd liked to have changed linen then. Give you my word, I knew

nothing of THAT melodrama. It seems the Greek girl put opium (a great many poppies, as monsieur told us,

grow about there) in the pirate's grog, just to make him sleep soundly and leave her free for a little walk with

me, and the old duenna, unfortunate creature, made a mistake and trebled the dose. The immense fortune of

that cursed pirate was really the cause of all my Zena's troubles. But she explained matters so ingenuously

that I, for one, was released with an injunction from the mayor and the Austrian commissary of police to go

back to Rome. Zena, who let the heirs of the Uscoque and the judges get most of the old villain's wealth, was

let off with two years' seclusion in a convent, where she still is. I am going back there some day to paint her

portrait; for in a few years, you know, all this will be forgotten. Such are the follies one commits at eighteen!"

"And you left me without a sou in the locanda at Venice," said Mistigris. "And I had to get from Venice to

Rome by painting portraits for five francs apiece, which they didn't pay me. However, that was my halcyon

"You can imagine the reflections that came to me in that Dalmatian prison, thrown there without protection,

having to answer to Austrians and Dalmatians, and in danger of losing my head because I went twice to walk

"Why shouldn't it happen to him, inasmuch as it had already happened during the French occupation of Illyria

"And you believed that artillery officer?" said Mistigris, as slyly to the count.

"Of course he can't tell you that they cut his head off,how could he?" said Mistigris. "'Dead schinners tell

"Monsieur, are there farms in that country?" asked Pere Leger. "What do they cultivate?"

"Maraschino," replied Mistigris,"a plant that grows to the height of the lips, and produces a liqueur which

"I only stayed three days in the town and fifteen in prison," said Schinner, "so I saw nothing; not even the

"They are fooling you," said Georges to the farmer. "Maraschino comes in cases."

Pierrotin's vehicle was now going down the steep incline of the valley of SaintBrice to the inn which stands

in the middle of the large village of that name, where Pierrotin was in the habit of stopping an hour to breathe

his horses, give them their oats, and water them. It was now about halfpast one o'clock.

"Ha! here's Pere Leger," cried the innkeeper, when the coach pulled up before the door. "Do you breakfast?"

"Always once a day," said the fat farmer; "and I'll break a crust here and now."

"Give us a good breakfast," cried Georges, twirling his cane in a cavalier manner which excited the

But that admiration was turned to jealousy when he saw the gay adventurer pull out from a sidepocket a

small straw case, from which he selected a lightcolored cigar, which he proceeded to smoke on the

"Sometimes," replied the exschoolboy, swelling out his little chest and assuming a jaunty air.

"The remains of those I brought back from Spain," said the adventurer. "Do you breakfast here?"

"No," said the artist. "I am expected at the chateau. Besides, I took something at the Lion d'Argent just before

Oscar would have given ten years of his life for boots and straps to his trousers. He sneezed, he coughed, he

With a motionless face Schinner breathed in the smoke of his cigar and let it out through his nose without the

slightest contraction of feature. Then he took another whiff, kept the smoke in his throat, removed the cigar

"Here, young man, here's another way; watch this," said Georges, imitating Schinner, but swallowing the

"And my parents believed they had educated me!" thought Oscar, endeavoring to smoke with better grace.

But his nausea was so strong that he was thankful when Mistigris filched his cigar, remarking, as he smoked

"How he does spend money!" he said, looking at Colonel Georges. "Eight francs for Alicante and the

"Ten francs at least," replied Mistigris; "but that's how things are. 'Sharp stomachs make short purses.'"

"Come, Pere Leger, let us drink a bottle of Bordeaux together," said Georges to the farmer.

"Twenty francs for his breakfast!" cried Oscar; "in all, more than thirtyodd francs since we started!"

Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post, lost in a revery which did not allow him

to perceive that his trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of junction between the

"We are brothers in socks," said Mistigris, pulling up his own trousers sufficiently to show an effect of the

The count, who overheard this, laughed as he stood with folded arms under the portecochere, a little behind

the other travellers. However nonsensical these lads might be, the grave statesman envied their very follies;

"Well, are you to have Les Moulineaux? for I know you went to Paris to get the money for the purchase,"

said the innkeeper to Pere Leger, whom he had just taken to the stables to see a horse he wanted to sell to

him. "It will be queer if you manage to fleece a peer of France and a minister of State like the Comte de

The person thus alluded to showed no sign upon his face as he turned to look at the farmer.

"Good! I like to see those nobles fooled. If you should want twenty thousand francs or so, I'll lend them to

you But Francois, the conductor of Touchard's six o'clock coach, told me that Monsieur Margueron was

"That was the plan of his Excellency, but we had our own little ways of thwarting it," said the farmer,

"The count could appoint Monsieur Margueron's son, and you haven't any place to give,remember that,"

"Of course I do; but if the count has the ministry on his side, I have King Louis XVIII.," said Pere Leger, in a

low voice. "Forty thousand of his pictures on coin of the realm given to Moreau will enable me to buy Les

Moulineaux for two hundred and sixty thousand, money down, before Monsieur de Serizy can do so. When

he finds the sale is made, he'll be glad enough to buy the farm for three hundred and sixty thousand, instead

"Yes; Les Moulineaux brings in today six thousand francs in rental. I'll take another lease of it at seven

thousand five hundred for eighteen years. Therefore it is really an investment at more than two and a half per

cent. The count can't complain of that. In order not to involve Moreau, he is himself to propose me as tenant

and farmer; it gives him a look of acting for his master's interests by finding him nearly three per cent for his

"Well, if the count gives him ten thousand francs for the transaction the matter will bring him fifty

"After all, the count, so they tell me, doesn't like Presles. And then he is so rich, what does it matter what it

"Nor I," said Pere Leger. "But he must be intending to live there, or why should he spend two hundred

thousand francs in restoring the chateau? It is as fine now as the King's own palace."

"Well, well," said the innkeeper, "it was high time for Moreau to feather his nest."

"Yes, for if the masters come there," replied Leger, "they won't keep their eyes in their pockets."

The count lost not a word of this conversation, which was held in a low voice, but not in a whisper.

"Here I have actually found the proofs I was going down there to seek," he thought, looking at the fat farmer

as he entered the kitchen. "But perhaps," he added, "it is only a scheme; Moreau may not have listened to it."

So unwilling was he to believe that his steward could lend himself to such a conspiracy.

Pierrotin here came out to water his horses. The count, thinking that the driver would probably breakfast with

"All these people combine against us," he thought; "it is allowable to baffle them Pierrotin," he said in a

low voice as the man passed him, "I promised you ten louis to keep my secret; but if you continue to conceal

my name (and remember, I shall know if you pronounce it, or make the slightest sign that reveals it to any

one, no matter who, here or at IsleAdam, before tonight), I will give you tomorrow morning, on your

return trip, the thousand francs you need to pay for your new coach. Therefore, by way of precaution," added

the count, striking Pierrotin, who was pale with happiness, on the shoulder, "don't go in there to breakfast;

"Monsieur le comte, I understand you; don't be afraid! it relates to Pere Leger, of course."

"Make yourself easy.Come, hurry," said Pierrotin, a few moments later, putting his head into the kitchen.

"We are late. Pere Leger, you know there's a hill to climb; I'm not hungry, and I'll drive on slowly; you can

"What a hurry you are in, Pierrotin!" said the innkeeper. "Can't you stay and breakfast? The colonel here

"I can't. I've got a fish I must deliver by three o'clock for a great dinner at Stors; there's no fooling with

"Very good," said Pere Leger to the innkeeper. "You can harness that horse you want to sell me into the

cabriolet; we'll breakfast in peace and overtake Pierrotin, and I can judge of the beast as we go along. We can

To the count's surprise, Pierrotin himself rebridled the horses. Schinner and Mistigris had walked on.

Scarcely had Pierrotin overtaken the two artists and was mounting the hill from which Ecouen, the steeple of

Mesnil, and the forests that surround that most beautiful region, came in sight, when the gallop of a horse and

the jingling of a vehicle announced the coming of Pere Leger and the grandson of CzerniGeorges, who were

As Pierrotin drove down the narrow road to Moisselles, Georges, who had so far not ceased to talk with the

farmer of the beauty of the hostess at SaintBrice, suddenly exclaimed: "Upon my word, this landscape is not

"I've two cigars left! If no one objects, will you help me finish them, Schinner? the little young man there

Oscar, furious at being called a "little young man," remarked, as the other two were lighting their cigars:

"I am not the aidedecamp of Mina, monsieur, and I have not yet been to the East, but I shall probably go

there. The career to which my family destine me will spare me, I trust, the annoyances of travelling in a

coucou before I reach your present age. When I once become a personage I shall know how to maintain my

"'Et caetera punctum!'" crowed Mistigris, imitating the hoarse voice of a young cock; which made Oscar's

deliverance all the more absurd, because he had just reached the age when the beard sprouts and the voice

"Your family, young man, destine you to some career, do they?" said Georges. "Might I ask what it is?"

Three bursts of laughter came from Mistigris, the great painter, and the farmer. The count himself could not

"By Allah!" he exclaimed, "I see nothing to laugh at in that. Though it seems to me, young man, that your

respectable mother is, at the present moment, not exactly in the social sphere of an ambassadress. She carried

"My mother, monsieur!" exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation. "That was the person in charge of our

A look from Georges repressed the desire to laugh which took possession of everybody; he contrived to make

Mistigris and the painter understand that it was necessary to manage Oscar cleverly in order to work this new

"Monsieur is right," said the great Schinner to the count, motioning towards Oscar. "Wellbred people

always talk of their 'households'; it is only common persons like ourselves who say 'home.' For a man so

"you seem to know little of the language of the courts. I ask your future protection, Excellency," added

"I congratulate myself on having travelled with three such distinguished men," said the count,"a painter

already famous, a future general, and a young diplomatist who may some day recover Belgium for France."

Having committed the odious crime of repudiating his mother, Oscar, furious from a sense that his

companions were laughing at him, now resolved, at any cost, to make them pay attention to him.

"That's not it," said Mistigris. "'All is not old that titters.' You'll never get on in diplomacy if you don't know

"It must be far," said Georges, "for I saw that person in charge of your household give you provisions enough

"A special kind of bread and chocolate, yes, monsieur," returned Oscar; "my stomach is much too delicate to

"The word is all the fashion in the best society," said Mistigris. "I use it myself at the cafe of the Black Hen."

"Your tutor is, doubtless, some celebrated professor, isn't he? Monsieur Andrieux of the Academie

"My tutor is or was the Abbe Loraux, now vicar of SaintSulpice," replied Oscar, recollecting the name of

"Well, you were right to take a private tutor," said Mistigris. "'Tuto, tutor, celeritus, and jocund.' Of course,

"We shall probably contribute to his rise, for the Abbe Frayssinous is constantly at our house."

"No, monsieur; but I am able to say where I am going, if others are not. I am going to the Chateau de Presles,

"The devil! are you going to Presles?" cried Schinner, turning as red as a cherry.

"Often," replied Oscar. "I am a comrade of his son, who is about my age, nineteen; we ride together on

"Really," said the count to Oscar, "I am delighted to meet with a young man who can tell me about that

personage. I want his influence on a rather serious matter, although it would cost him nothing to oblige me. It

concerns a claim I wish to press on the American government. I should be glad to obtain information about

"Oh! if you want to succeed," replied Oscar, with a knowing look, "don't go to him, but go to his wife; he is

madly in love with her; no one knows more than I do about that; but she can't endure him."

"The count has a skin disease which makes him hideous. Doctor Albert has tried in vain to cure it. The count

would give half his fortune if he had a chest like mine," said Oscar, swelling himself out. "He lives a lonely

life in his own house; gets up very early in the morning and works from three to eight o'clock; after eight he

takes his remedies, sulphurbaths, steambaths, and such things. His valet bakes him in a sort of iron

"If he is such a friend of the King as they say he is, why doesn't he get his Majesty to touch him?" asked

"The count has lately promised thirty thousand francs to a celebrated Scotch doctor who is coming over to

"Then his wife can't be blamed if she finds better" said Schinner, but he did not finish his sentence.

"I should say so!" resumed Oscar. "The poor man is so shrivelled and old you would take him for eighty!

"He adores his wife and dares not find fault with her," pursued Oscar, rejoicing to have found a topic to

which they listened. "He plays scenes with her which would make you die of laughing,exactly like

The count, horrorstricken, looked at Pierrotin, who, finding that the count said nothing, concluded that

"So, monsieur," continued Oscar, "if you want the count's influence, I advise you to apply to the Marquis

d'Aiglemont. If you get that former adorer of Madame de Serizy on your side, you will win husband and wife

"Look here!" said the painter, "you seem to have seen the count without his clothes; are you his valet?"

"Hang it! people don't tell such things about their friends in public conveyances," exclaimed Mistigris. "As

for me, I'm not listening to you; I'm deaf: 'discretion plays the better part of adder.'"

"Great painter," said Georges, sententiously, "learn this: you can't say harm of people you don't know. Now

the little one here has proved, indubitably, that he knows his Serizy by heart. If he had told us about the

"Stop! not a word about the Comtesse de Serizy, young men," cried the count. "I am a friend of her brother,

the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and whoever attempts to speak disparagingly of the countess must answer to

"I don't know the guerrilla chieftain, Mina, but I know the Keeper of the Seals," continued the count, looking

at Georges; "and though I don't wear my decorations," he added, looking at the painter, "I prevent those who

do not deserve them from obtaining any. And finally, let me say that I know so many persons that I even

know Monsieur Grindot, the architect of Presles. Pierrotin, stop at the next inn; I want to get out a moment."

Pierrotin hurried his horses through the village street of Moisselles, at the end of which was the inn where all

"Where is that young fool going?" asked the count, drawing Pierrotin into the innyard.

"To your steward. He is the son of a poor lady who lives in the rue de la Cerisaie, to whom I often carry fruit,

"Who is that man?" inquired Pere Leger of Pierrotin when the count had left him.

"Faith, I don't know," replied Pierrotin; "this is the first time I have driven him. I shouldn't be surprised if he

was that prince who owns Maffliers. He has just told me to leave him on the road near there; he doesn't want

"Pierrotin thinks he is the master of Maffliers," said Pere Leger, addressing Georges when he got back into

The three young fellows were now as dull as thieves caught in the act; they dared not look at each other, and

"Possibly. But you'll never be an ambassador," replied Georges. "When people want to talk in public

conveyances, they ought to be careful, like me, to talk without saying anything."

The count returned to his seat and the coucou rolled on amid the deepest silence.

"Well, my friends," said the count, when they reached the Carreau woods, "here we all are, as silent as if we

"What place is that?" said Oscar, pointing to the chateau de Franconville, which produces a fine effect at that

"How is it," cried the count, "that you, who say you go so often to Presles, do not know Franconville?"

"Be so good as to remember my name," replied Oscar, furious. "I am Oscar Husson, and ten years hence I

After that speech, uttered with bombastic assumption, Oscar flung himself back in his corner.

"It is a great family," replied the count. "Husson de la Cerisaie; monsieur was born beneath the steps of the

Oscar colored crimson to the roots of his hair, and was penetrated through and through with a dreadful

They were now about to descend the steep hill of La Cave, at the foot of which, in a narrow valley, flanked

"Messieurs," said the count, "I wish you every good fortune in your various careers. Monsieur le colonel,

make your peace with the King of France; the CzerniGeorges ought not to snub the Bourbons. I have

nothing to wish for you, my dear Monsieur Schinner; your fame is already won, and nobly won by splendid

work. But you are much to be feared in domestic life, and I, being a married man, dare not invite you to my

house. As for Monsieur Husson, he needs no protection; he possesses the secrets of statesmen and can make

them tremble. Monsieur Leger is about to pluck the Comte de Serizy, and I can only exhort him to do it with

a firm hand. Pierrotin, put me out here, and pick me up at the same place tomorrow," added the count, who

then left the coach and took a path through the woods, leaving his late companions confused and bewildered.

"He must be that count who has hired Franconville; that's the path to it," said Leger.

"If ever again," said the false Schinner, "I am caught blagueing in a public coach, I'll fight a duel with

"All I did was to help you out, and follow you to Venice," said Mistigris; "but that's always the way, 'Fortune

"Let me tell you," said Georges to his neighbor Oscar, "that if, by chance, that was the Comte de Serizy, I

Oscar, remembering his mother's injunctions, which these words recalled to his mind, turned pale and came

"Well, well!" exclaimed Pierrotin, "if that doesn't beat all! Ah ca, monsieurs, have none of you been here

"Oh, yes; all right, friend," said Georges, recovering his audacity. "But I happen to be going on to Les

Moulineaux," he added, not wishing his companions to know that he was really going to the chateau.

"Pierrotin," said Oscar, "leave my things at the steward's. I am going straight to the chateau."

Whereupon Oscar plunged into a narrow path, not knowing, in the least, where he was going.

"Hi! Monsieur l'ambassadeur," cried Pere Leger, "that's the way to the forest; if you really want to get to the

Thus compelled to enter, Oscar disappeared into the grand courtyard. While Pere Leger stood watching

Oscar, Georges, utterly confounded by the discovery that the farmer was the present occupant of Les

Moulineaux, has slipped away so adroitly that when the fat countryman looked round for his colonel there

The iron gates opened at Pierrotin's demand, and he proudly drove in to deposit with the concierge the

thousand and one utensils belonging to the great Schinner. Oscar was thunderstruck when he became aware

that Mistigris and his master, the witnesses of his bravado, were to be installed in the chateau itself. In ten

minutes Pierrotin had discharged the various packages of the painter, the bundles of Oscar Husson, and the

pretty little leather portmanteau, which he took from its nest of hay and confided mysteriously to the wife of

the concierge. Then he drove out of the courtyard, cracking his whip, and took the road that led through the

forest to IsleAdam, his face beaming with the sly expression of a peasant who calculates his profits. Nothing

was lacking now to his happiness; on the morrow he would have his thousand francs, and, as a consequence,

Oscar, somewhat abashed, was skulking behind a clump of trees in the centre of the courtyard, and watching

to see what became of his two roadcompanions, when Monsieur Moreau suddenly came out upon the

portico from what was called the guardroom. He was dressed in a long blue overcoat which came to his

heels, breeches of yellowish leather and topboots, and in his hand he carried a ridingwhip.

"Ah! my boy, so here you are? How is the dear mamma?" he said, taking Oscar by the hand. "Goodday,

messieurs," he added to Mistigris and his master, who then came forward. "You are, no doubt, the two

"Take these gentlemen to rooms 14 and 15. Madame Moreau will give you the keys. Go with them to show

the way; make fires there, if necessary, and take up all their things. I have orders from Monsieur le comte," he

added, addressing the two young men, "to invite you to my table, messieurs; we dine at five, as in Paris. If

you like hunting, you will find plenty to amuse you; I have a license from the Eaux et Forets; and we hunt

Oscar, the painter, and Mistigris, all more or less subdued, exchanged glances, but Mistigris, faithful to

himself, remarked in a low tone, "'Veni, vidi, cecidi,I came, I saw, I slaughtered.'"

"Jacques," said Moreau to one of his children whom they met, "run in and tell your mother that little Husson

has come, and say to her that I am obliged to go to Les Moulineaux for a moment."

The steward, then about fifty years old, was a dark man of medium height, and seemed stern. His bilious

complexion, to which country habits had added a certain violent coloring, conveyed, at first sight, the

impression of a nature which was other than his own. His blue eyes and a large crowbeaked nose gave him

an air that was the more threatening because his eyes were placed too close together. But his large lips, the

outline of his face, and the easy goodhumor of his manner soon showed that his nature was a kindly one.

Abrupt in speech and decided in tone, he impressed Oscar immensely by the force of his penetration,

inspired, no doubt, by the affection which he felt for the boy. Trained by his mother to magnify the steward,

Oscar had always felt himself very small in Moreau's presence; but on reaching Presles a new sensation came

over him, as if he expected some harm from this fatherly figure, his only protector.

"Well, my Oscar, you don't look pleased at getting here," said the steward. "And yet you'll find plenty of

"Oh! we'll see about that," replied Moreau, rather wounded that his conjugal authority was doubted.

He himself went rapidly along the shortest path to the gamekeeper's house, which was situated between the

The pavilion, or lodge, in which the count had established his steward, was built a few years before the

Revolution. It stood in the centre of a large garden, one wall of which adjoined the courtyard of the stables

and offices of the chateau itself. Formerly its chief entrance was on the main road to the village. But after the

count's father bought the building, he closed that entrance and united the place with his own property.

The house, built of freestone, in the style of the period of Louis XV. (it is enough to say that its exterior

decoration consisted of a stone drapery beneath the windows, as in the colonnades of the Place Louis XV.,

the flutings of which were stiff and ungainly), had on the groundfloor a fine salon opening into a bedroom,

and a diningroom connected with a billiardroom. These rooms, lying parallel to one another, were

separated by a staircase, in front of which was a sort of peristyle which formed an entrancehall, on which

the two suits of rooms on either side opened. The kitchen was beneath the diningroom, for the whole

By placing her own bedroom on the first floor above the groundfloor, Madame Moreau was able to

transform the chamber adjoining the salon into a boudoir. These two rooms were richly furnished with

beautiful pieces culled from the rare old furniture of the chateau. The salon, hung with blue and white

damask, formerly the curtains of the state bed, was draped with ample portieres and window curtains lined

with white silk. Pictures, evidently from old panels, plantstands, various pretty articles of modern

upholstery, handsome lamps, and a rare old cutglass chandelier, gave a grandiose appearance to the room.

The carpet was a Persian rug. The boudoir, wholly modern, and furnished entirely after Madame Moreau's

own taste, was arranged in imitation of a tent, with ropes of blue silk on a gray background. The classic divan

was there, of course, with its pillows and footstools. The plantstands, taken care of by the headgardener of

Presles, rejoiced the eye with their pyramids of bloom. The diningroom and billiard room were furnished

Around the house the steward's wife had laid out a beautiful garden, carefully cultivated, which opened into

the great park. Groups of choice parks hid the offices and stables. To improve the entrance by which visitors

came to see her, she had substituted a handsome iron gateway for the shabby railing, which she discarded.

The dependence in which the situation of their dwelling placed the Moreaus, was thus adroitly concealed, and

they seemed all the more like rich and independent persons taking care of the property of a friend, because

neither the count nor the countess ever came to Presles to take down their pretensions. Moreover, the

perquisites granted by Monsieur de Serizy allowed them to live in the midst of that abundance which is the

luxury of country life. Milk, eggs, poultry, game, fruits, flowers, forage, vegetables, wood, the steward and

his wife used in profusion, buying absolutely nothing but butcher'smeat, wines, and the colonial supplies

required by their life of luxury. The poultrymaid baked their bread; and of late years Moreau had paid his

butcher with pigs from the farm, after reserving those he needed for his own use.

On one occasion, the countess, always kind and good to her former maid, gave her, as a souvenir perhaps, a

little travellingcarriage, the fashion of which was out of date. Moreau had it repainted, and now drove his

wife about the country with two good horses which belonged to the farm. Besides these horses, Moreau had

his own saddlehorse. He did enough farming on the count's property to keep the horses and maintain his

servants. He stacked three hundred tons of excellent hay, but accounted for only one hundred, making use of

a vague permission once granted by the count. He kept his poultryyard, pigeoncotes, and cattle at the cost

of the estate, but the manure of the stables was used by the count's gardeners. All these little stealings had

Madame Moreau had taken into her service a daughter of one of the gardeners, who was first her maid and

afterwards her cook. The poultrygame, also the dairymaid, assisted in the work of the household; and the

steward had hired a discharged soldier to groom the horses and do the heavy labor.

At Nerville, Chaumont, Maffliers, Nointel, and other places of the neighborhood, the handsome wife of the

steward was received by persons who either did not know, or pretended not to know her previous condition.

Moreau did services to many persons. He induced his master to agree to certain things which seem trifles in

Paris, but are really of immense importance in the country. After bringing about the appointment of a certain

"juge de paix" at Beaumont and also at Isle Adam, he had, in the same year, prevented the dismissal of a

keeper general of the Forests, and obtained the cross of the Legion of honor for the first cavalrysergeant at

Beaumont. Consequently, no festivity was ever given among the bourgeoisie to which Monsieur and Madame

Moreau were not invited. The rector of Presles and the mayor of Presles came every evening to play cards

with them. It is difficult for a man not to be kind and hospitable after feathering his nest so comfortably.

A pretty woman, and an affected one, as all retired waitingmaids of great ladies are, for after they are

married they imitate their mistresses, Madame Moreau imported from Paris all the new fashions. She wore

expensive boots, and never was seen on foot, except, occasionally, in the finest weather. Though her husband

allowed but five hundred francs a year for her toilet, that sum is immense in the provinces, especially if well

laid out. So that Madame Moreau, fair, rosy, and fresh, about thirtysix years of age, still slender and delicate

in shape in spite of her three children, played the young girl and gave herself the airs of a princess. If, when

she drove by in her caleche, some stranger had asked, "Who is she?" Madame Moreau would have been

furious had she heard the reply: "The wife of the steward at Presles." She wished to be taken for the mistress

of the chateau. In the villages, she patronized the people in the tone of a great lady. The influence of her

husband over the count, proved in so many years, prevented the small bourgeoisie from laughing at Madame

Estelle (her name was Estelle) took no more part in the affairs of the stewardship then the wife of a broker

does in her husband's affairs at the Bourse. She even depended on Moreau for the care of the household and

their own fortune. Confident of his MEANS, she was a thousand leagues from dreaming that this comfortable

existence, which had lasted for seventeen years, could ever be endangered. And yet, when she heard of the

count's determination to restore the magnificent chateau, she felt that her enjoyments were threatened, and

she urged her husband to come to the arrangement with Leger about Les Moulineaux, so that they might

retire from Presles and live at Isle Adam. She had no intention of returning to a position that was more or

less that of a servant in presence of her former mistress, who, indeed, would have laughed to see her

The rancorous enmity which existed between the Reyberts and the Moreaus came from a wound inflicted by

Madame de Reybert upon Madame Moreau on the first occasion when the latter assumed precedence over the

former on her first arrival at Presles, the wife of the steward being determined not to allow her supremacy to

be undermined by a woman nee de Corroy. Madame de Reybert thereupon reminded, or, perhaps, informed

the whole countryside of Madame Moreau's former station. The words "waitingmaid" flew from lip to lip.

The envious acquaintances of the Moreaus throughout the neighborhood from Beaumont to Moisselles, began

to carp and criticize with such eagerness that a few sparks of the conflagration fell into the Moreau

household. For four years the Reyberts, cut dead by the handsome Estelle, found themselves the objects of so

much animadversion on the part of the adherents of the Moreaus that their position at Presles would not have

been endurable without the thought of vengeance which had, so far, supported them.

The Moreaus, who were very friendly with Grindot the architect, had received notice from him of the early

arrival of the two painters sent down to finish the decorations of the chateau, the principal paintings for which

were just completed by Schinner. The great painter had recommended for this work the artist who was

accompanied by Mistigris. For two days past Madame Moreau had been on the tiptoe of expectation, and had

put herself under arms to receive him. An artist, who was to be her guest and companion for weeks,

demanded some effort. Schinner and his wife had their own apartment at the chateau, where, by the count's

express orders, they were treated with all the consideration due to himself. Grindot, who stayed at the

steward's house, showed such respect for the great artist that neither the steward nor his wife had attempted to

put themselves on familiar terms with him. Moreover, the noblest and richest people in the surrounding

country had vied with each other in paying attention to Schinner and his wife. So, very well pleased to have,

as it were, a little revenge of her own, Madame Moreau was determined to cry up the artist she was now

expecting, and to present him to her social circle as equal in talent to the great Schinner.

Though for two days past Moreau's pretty wife had arrayed herself coquettishly, the prettiest of her toilets had

been reserved for this very Saturday, when, as she felt no doubt, the artist would arrive for dinner. A pink

gown in very narrow stripes, a pink belt with a richly chased gold buckle, a velvet ribbon and cross at her

throat, and velvet bracelets on her bare arms (Madame de Serizy had handsome arms and showed them

much), together with bronze kid shoes and thread stockings, gave Madame Moreau all the appearance of an

elegant Parisian. She wore, also, a superb bonnet of Leghorn straw, trimmed with a bunch of moss roses from

Nattier's, beneath the spreading sides of which rippled the curls of her beautiful blond hair.

After ordering a very choice dinner and reviewing the condition of her rooms, she walked about the grounds,

so as to be seen standing near a flowerbed in the courtyard of the chateau, like the mistress of the house,

on the arrival of the coach from Paris. She held above her head a charming rosecolored parasol lined with

white silk and fringed. Seeing that Pierrotin merely left Mistigris's queer packages with the concierge, having,

apparently, brought no passengers, Estelle retired disappointed and regretting the trouble of making her

useless toilet. Like many persons who are dressed in their best, she felt incapable of any other occupation

than that of sitting idly in her salon awaiting the coach from Beaumont, which usually passed about an hour

after that of Pierrotin, though it did not leave Paris till midday. She was, therefore, in her own apartment

when the two artists walked up to the chateau, and were sent by Moreau himself to their rooms where they

made their regulation toilet for dinner. The pair had asked questions of their guide, the gardener, who told

them so much of Moreau's beauty that they felt the necessity of "rigging themselves up" (studio slang). They,

therefore, put on their most superlative suits and then walked over to the steward's lodge, piloted by Jacques

Moreau, the eldest son, a hardy youth, dressed like an English boy in a handsome jacket with a turnedover

collar, who was spending his vacation like a fish in water on the estate where his father and mother reigned as

Madame Moreau, agreeably surprised, rose, told her son to place chairs, and began to display her graces.

The remark "you need not hurry" proved to the two artists the unimportance of their late travelling

companion in the eyes of their hostess; but it also showed, what they did not know, the feeling of a

stepmother against a stepson. Madame Moreau, after seventeen years of married life, could not be ignorant

of the steward's attachment to Madame Clapart and the little Husson, and she hated both mother and child so

vehemently that it is not surprising that Moreau had never before risked bringing Oscar to Presles.

"We are requested, my husband and myself," she said to the two artists, "to do you the honors of the chateau.

We both love art, and, above all, artists," she added in a mincing tone; "and I beg you to make yourselves at

home here. In the country, you know, every one should be at their ease; one must feel wholly at liberty, or life

Mistigris began to rebel internally against the patronizing manner of the steward's wife; but he waited, like

Bridau, for some word which might give him his cue; one of those words "de singe a dauphin" which artists,

cruel, bornobservers of the ridiculousthe pabulum of their pencilsseize with such avidity. Meantime

Estelle's clumsy hands and feet struck their eyes, and presently a word, or phrase or two, betrayed her past,

and quite out of keeping with the elegance of her dress, made the two young fellows aware of their prey. A

single glance at each other was enough to arrange a scheme that they should take Estelle seriously on her own

"You say you love art, madame; perhaps you cultivate it successfully," said Joseph Bridau.

"No. Without being neglected, my education was purely commercial; but I have so profound and delicate a

sense of art that Monsieur Schinner always asked me, when he had finished a piece of work, to give him my

Not knowing that La Foret was Moliere's servantwoman, Madame Moreau inclined her head graciously,

"Didn't he propose to 'croquer' you?" asked Bridau. "Painters are eager enough after handsome women."

"In the studios we say croquer, craunch, nibble, for sketching," interposed Mistigris, with an insinuating air,

"and we are always wanting to croquer beautiful heads. That's the origin of the expression, 'She is pretty

"I was not aware of the origin of the term," she replied, with the sweetest glance at Mistigris.

"My pupil here," said Bridau, "Monsieur Leon de Lora, shows a remarkable talent for portraiture. He would

be too happy, I know, to leave you a souvenir of our stay by painting your charming head, madame."

Joseph Bridau made a sign to Mistigris which meant: "Come, sail in, and push the matter; she is not so bad in

Accepting the glance, Leon de Lora slid down upon the sofa beside Estelle and took her hand, which she

"Oh! madame, if you would like to offer a surprise to your husband, and will give me a few secret sittings I

would endeavor to surpass myself. You are so beautiful, so fresh, so charming! A man without any talent

"We must paint your dear children in the arabesques," said Bridau, interrupting Mistigris.

"I would rather have them in the salon; but perhaps I am indiscreet in asking it," she replied, looking at

"Beauty, madame, is a sovereign whom all painters worship; it has unlimited claims upon them."

"They are both charming," thought Madame Moreau. "Do you enjoy driving? Shall I take you through the

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Mistigris, in three ecstatic tones. "Why, Presles will prove our terrestrial paradise."

Just as Madame Moreau was bridling, and soaring to the seventh heaven, she was recalled like a kite by a

"Rosalie," said her mistress, "who allowed you to come here without being sent for?"

"Then give them to him," she replied, making an impatient gesture to hide her real trouble.

"Mamma! here's Oscar Husson," said her youngest son, bringing in Oscar, who turned as red as a poppy on

"Oh! so you have come, my little Oscar," said Estelle, stiffly. "I hope you will now go and dress," she added,

after looking at him contemptuously from head to foot. "Your mother, I presume, has not accustomed you to

"Oh!" cried the cruel Mistigris, "a future diplomatist knows the saying that 'two coats are better than none.'"

"Merely a joke made in travelling," replied Joseph, who wanted to save Oscar's feelings out of pity.

"The boy just wanted to be funny like the rest of us, and he blagued, that's all," said Mistigris.

"Madame," said Rosalie, returning to the door of the salon, "his Excellency has ordered dinner for eight, and

During Estelle's conference with her headwoman the two artists and Oscar looked at each other in

"Oh!" exclaimed Oscar, "the Comte de Serizy always travels in his own carriage with four horses."

"How did the Comte de Serizy get here?" said the painter to Madame Moreau, when she returned, much

"I am sure I do not know," she said. "I cannot explain to myself this sudden arrival; nor do I know what has

"His Excellency wishes Monsieur Schinner to come over to the chateau," said the gardener, coming to the

door of the salon. "And he begs Monsieur Schinner to give him the pleasure to dine with him; also Monsieur

"Done for!" cried the rapin, laughing. "He whom we took for a bourgeois in the coucou was the count. You

Oscar was very nearly changed to a pillar of salt; for, at this revelation, his throat felt saltier than the sea.

"And you, who talked to him about his wife's lovers and his skin diseases!" said Mistigris, turning on Oscar.

"What does he mean?" exclaimed the steward's wife, gazing after the two artists, who went away laughing at

Oscar remained dumb, confounded, stupefied, hearing nothing, though Madame Moreau questioned him and

shook him violently by his arm, which she caught and squeezed. She gained nothing, however, and was

forced to leave him in the salon without an answer, for Rosalie appeared again, to ask for linen and silver, and

to beg she would go herself and see that the multiplied orders of the count were executed. All the household,

together with the gardeners and the concierge and his wife, were going and coming in a confusion that may

From the top of the hill near La Cave, where he left the coach, the count had gone, by the path through the

woods wellknown to him, to the house of his gamekeeper. The keeper was amazed when he saw his real

"No, monseigneur; he means to go to Moulineaux before dinner, and he has left his horse here while he went

"If you value your place," said the count, "you will take that horse and ride at once to Beaumont, where you

So saying the count entered the keeper's lodge and wrote a line, folding it in a way impossible to open

"Not a word to any one," he said, "and as for you, madame," he added to the gamekeeper's wife, "if Moreau

The count then crossed the park and entered the courtyard of the chateau through the iron gates. However

wornout a man may be by the wear and tear of public life, by his own emotions, by his own mistakes and

disappointments, the soul of any man able to love deeply at the count's age is still young and sensitive to

treachery. Monsieur de Serizy had felt such pain at the thought that Moreau had deceived him, that even after

hearing the conversation at SaintBrice he thought him less an accomplice of Leger and the notary than their

tool. On the threshold of the inn, and while that conversation was still going on, he thought of pardoning his

steward after giving him a good reproof. Strange to say, the dishonesty of his confidential agent occupied his

mind as a mere episode from the moment when Oscar revealed his infirmities. Secrets so carefully guarded

could only have been revealed by Moreau, who had, no doubt, laughed over the hidden troubles of his

benefactor with either Madame de Serizy's former maid or with the Aspasia of the Directory.

As he walked along the woodpath, this peer of France, this statesman, wept as young men weep; he wept his

last tears. All human feelings were so cruelly hurt by one stroke that the usually calm man staggered through

When Moreau arrived at the gamekeeper's lodge and asked for his horse, the keeper's wife replied:

"Why, the Comte de Serizy, our master," she replied. "He is probably at the chateau by this time," she added,

anxious to be rid of the steward, who, unable to understand the meaning of her words, turned back towards

But he presently turned again and came back to the lodge, intending to question the woman more closely; for

he began to see something serious in this secret arrival, and the apparently strange method of his master's

return. But the wife of the gamekeeper, alarmed to find herself caught in a vise between the count and his

steward, had locked herself into the house, resolved not to open to any but her husband. Moreau, more and

more uneasy, ran rapidly, in spite of his boots and spurs, to the chateau, where he was told that the count was

Moreau then went through the offices to his own house. On his way he met the poultrygirl, who was having

"Monsieur le comte particularly told me a colonel, an aidedecamp of Mina," insisted the girl.

"Monsieur, my name is Georges Marest; I am the son of a rich wholesale ironmonger in the rue

SaintMartin; I come on business to Monsieur le Comte de Serizy from Maitre Crottat, a notary, whose

"And I," said the girl, "am telling him that monseigneur said to me: 'There'll come a colonel named

CzerniGeorges, aidedecamp to Mina; he'll come by Pierrotin's coach; if he asks for me show him into the

"Evidently," said the clerk, "the count is a traveller who came down with us in Pierrotin's coucou; if it hadn't

"A rabbit! in Pierrotin's coucou!" exclaimed Moreau and the poultry girl together.

"Ah! that's the point," cried the clerk. "To hoax the travellers and have a bit of fun I told them a lot of stuff

about Egypt and Greece and Spain. As I happened to be wearing spurs I have myself out for a colonel of

"Tell me," said Moreau, "what did this traveller you take to be Monsieur le comte look like?"

"Pooh! he's a good fellow; you probably amused him. Come at once to the chateau. I'll go in and see his

"After all," thought Georges, "though I did blague him, I didn't say anything insulting."

"I have brought the deed of sale for the farm at Moulineaux, all ready for signature."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the steward, "I don't understand one word of all this!"

Moreau felt his heart beat painfully when, after giving two raps on his master's door, he heard the words:

The count was now wearing a pair of white trousers and thin boots, a white waistcoat and a black coat on

which shone the grand cross of the Legion upon the right breast, and fastened to a buttonhole on the left was

the order of the Golden Fleece hanging by a short gold chain. He had arranged his hair himself, and had, no

doubt, put himself in full dress to do the honors of Presles to Monsieur Margueron; and, possibly, to impress

"Well, monsieur," said the count, who remained seated, leaving Moreau to stand before him. "We have not

"Monsieur," said the count, with a stern air which was really terrible, "what would you do with a man whom

you trusted, if, after seeing you dress wounds which you desired to keep secret from all the world, he should

"And if you discovered that he was also betraying your confidence and robbing you?"

"Monsieur Moreau, listen to me. You have undoubtedly spoken of my infirmities to Madame Clapart; you

have laughed at her house, and with her, over my attachment to the Comtesse de Serizy; for her son, little

Husson, told a number of circumstances relating to my medical treatment, to travellers by a public

conveyance in my presence, and Heaven knows in what language! He dared to calumniate my wife. Besides

this, I learned from the lips of Pere Leger himself, who was in the coach, of the plan laid by the notary at

Beaumont and by you and by himself in relation to Les Moulineaux. If you have been, as you say, to

Monsieur Margueron, it was to tell him to feign illness. He is so little ill that he is coming here to dinner this

evening. Now, monsieur, I could pardon you having made two hundred and fifty thousand francs out of your

situation in seventeen years,I can understand that. You might each time have asked me for what you took,

and I would have given it to you; but let that pass. You have been, notwithstanding this disloyalty, better than

others, as I believe. But that you, who knew my toil for our country, for France, you have seen me giving

night after night to the Emperor's service, and working eighteen hours of each twentyfour for months

together, you who knew my love for Madame de Serizy,that you should have gossiped about me before a

boy! holding up my secrets and my affections to the ridicule of a Madame Husson!"

"It is unpardonable. To injure a man's interest, why, that is nothing; but to stab his heart!Oh! you do not

"I leave you what you have gained," he said after a time, "and I shall forget you. For my sake, for my dignity,

and for your honor, we will part decently; for I cannot but remember even now what your father did for mine.

You will explain the duties of the stewardship in a proper manner to Monsieur de Reybert, who succeeds you.

Be calm, as I am. Give no opportunity for fools to talk. Above all, let there be no recrimination or petty

meanness. Though you no longer possess my confidence, endeavor to behave with the decorum of wellbred

persons. As for that miserable boy who has wounded me to death, I will not have him sleep at Presles; send

"I do not deserve such gentleness, monseigneur," said Moreau, with tears in his eyes. "Yes, you are right; if I

had been utterly dishonest I should now be worth five hundred thousand francs instead of half that sum. I

offer to give you an account of my fortune, with all its details. But let me tell you, monseigneur, that in

talking of you with Madame Clapart, it was never in derision; but, on the contrary, to deplore your state, and

to ask her for certain remedies, not used by physicians, but known to the common people. I spoke of your

feelings before the boy, who was in his bed and, as I supposed, asleep (it seems he must have been awake and

listening to us), with the utmost affection and respect. Alas! fate wills that indiscretions be punished like

crimes. But while accepting the results of your just anger, I wish you to know what actually took place. It

was, indeed, from heart to heart that I spoke of you to Madame Clapart. As for my wife, I have never said one

"Enough," said the count, whose conviction was now complete; "we are not children. All is now irrevocable.

Put your affairs and mine in order. You can stay in the pavilion until October. Monsieur and Madame de

Reybert will lodge for the present in the chateau; endeavor to keep on terms with them, like wellbred

The count and Moreau went downstairs; Moreau white as the count's hair, the count himself calm and

During the time this interview lasted the Beaumont coach, which left Paris at one o'clock, had stopped before

the gates of the chateau, and deposited Maitre Crottat, the notary, who was shown, according to the count's

orders, into the salon, where he found his clerk, extremely subdued in manner, and the two painters, all three

of them painfully selfconscious and embarrassed. Monsieur de Reybert, a man of fifty, with a crabbed

expression of face, was also there, accompanied by old Margueron and the notary of Beaumont, who held in

When these various personages saw the count in evening dress, and wearing his orders, Georges Marest had a

slight sensation of colic, Joseph Bridau quivered, but Mistigris, who was conscious of being in his Sunday

clothes, and had, moreover, nothing on his conscience, remarked, in a sufficiently loud tone:

"Little scamp," said the count, catching him by the ear, "we are both in the decoration business. I hope you

recognize your own work, my dear Schinner," he added, pointing to the ceiling of the salon.

"Monseigneur," replied the artist, "I did wrong to take such a celebrated name out of mere bravado; but this

day will oblige me to do fine things for you, and so bring credit on my own name of Joseph Bridau."

"You took up my defence," said the count, hastily; "and I hope you will give me the pleasure of dining with

"Your Excellency doesn't know to what you expose yourself," said the saucy rapin; "'facilis descensus

"Bridau!" exclaimed the minister, struck by a sudden thought. "Are you any relation to one of the most

devoted toilers under the Empire, the head of a bureau, who fell a victim to his zeal?"

"Then you are most welcome here," said the count, taking Bridau's hand in both of his. "I knew your father,

and you can count on me as onon an uncle in America," added the count, laughing. "But you are too young

"To my friend Schinner, who lent him to me," said Joseph. "Mistigris' name is Leon de Lora. Monseigneur, if

you knew my father, will you deign to think of his other son, who is now accused of plotting against the

"Ah! that's true," said the count. "Yes, I will think about it, be sure of that. As for Colonel CzerniGeorges,

the friend of Ali Pacha, and Mina's aidedecamp" he continued, walking up to Georges.

"You are quite mistaken, Maitre Crottat," said the count, assuming a stern air. "A clerk who intends to be a

notary does not leave important deeds in a diligence at the mercy of other travellers; neither does he spend

twenty francs between Paris and Moisselles; or expose himself to be arrested as a deserter"

"Monseigneur," said Georges Marest, "I may have amused myself with the bourgeois in the diligence, but"

"Let his Excellency finish what he was saying," said the notary, digging his elbow into his clerk's ribs.

"A notary," continued the count, "ought to practise discretion, shrewdness, caution from the start; he should

"I am willing to be blamed for my faults," said Georges; "but I never left my deeds at the mercy of"

"Now you are committing the fault of contradicting the word of a minister of State, a gentleman, an old man,

"That will do; don't disarrange those papers," said the count, taking the deed from his pocket. "Here is what

Crottat turned the paper back and forth, so astonished was he at receiving it from the hands of his client.

"If I had not taken it," said the count, "Pere Leger,who is by no means such a ninny as you thought him

from his questions about agriculture, by which he showed that he attended to his own business, Pere Leger

might have seized that paper and guessed my purpose. You must give me the pleasure of dining with me, but

one on condition, that of describing, as you promised, the execution of the Muslim of Smyrna, and you

must also finish the memoirs of some client which you have certainly read to be so well informed."

"Gentlemen," said the count to the two notaries and Messieurs Margueron and de Reybert, "let us go into the

next room and conclude this business before dinner, because, as my friend Mistigris would say: 'Qui esurit

"Well, he is very goodnatured," said Leon de Lora to Georges Marest, when the count had left the room.

"Yes, HE may be, but my master isn't," said Georges, "and he will request me to go and blaguer somewhere

"What a dressing that boy will get from Monsieur and Madame Moreau!" cried Mistigris.

"Little idiot!" said Georges. "If it hadn't been for him the count would have been amused. Well, anyhow, the

While the matter of the sale was being settled between Monsieur Margueron and the Comte de Serizy,

assisted by their respective notaries in presence of Monsieur de Reybert, the exsteward walked with slow

steps to his own house. There he entered the salon and sat down without noticing anything. Little Husson,

who was present, slipped into a corner, out of sight, so much did the livid face of his mother's friend alarm

"Eh! my friend!" said Estelle, coming into the room, somewhat tired with what she had been doing. "What is

"My dear, we are lost,lost beyond recovery. I am no longer steward of Presles, no longer in the count's

"Pere Leger, who was in Pierrotin's coach, told the count all about the affair of Les Moulineaux. But that is

"Oscar!" cried Madame Moreau. "Ah! my dear, your sin has found you out. It was well worth while to warm

At this moment Estelle and her husband discovered Oscar cowering in his corner. Moreau swooped down on

the luckless lad like a hawk on its prey, took him by the collar of the coat and dragged him to the light of a

window. "Speak! what did you say to monseigneur in that coach? What demon let loose your tongue, you

who keep a doltish silence whenever I speak to you? What did you do it for?" cried the steward, with frightful

"As if his Excellency cares for a little toad like that!" cried the furious Estelle.

"No! no! mercy!" cried Oscar, who could not bring himself to submit to a torture that seemed to him worse

Moreau then took the lad by his coat, and dragged him, as he might a dead body, through the yards, which

rang with the boy's outcries and sobs. He pulled him up the portico, and, with an arm that fury made

powerful, he flung him, bellowing, and rigid as a pole, into the salon, at the very feet of the count, who,

having completed the purchase of Les Moulineaux, was about to leave the salon for the diningroom with his

"On your knees, wretched boy! and ask pardon of him who gave food to your mind by obtaining your

Oscar, his face to the ground, was foaming with rage, and did not say a word. The spectators of the scene

were shocked. Moreau seemed no longer in his senses; his face was crimson with injected blood.

"This young man is a mere lump of vanity," said the count, after waiting a moment for Oscar's excuses. "A

proud man humiliates himself because he sees there is grandeur in a certain selfabasement. I am afraid that

So saying, his Excellency passed on. Moreau took Oscar home with him; and on the way gave orders that the

While the horses were being harnessed, Moreau wrote the following letter to Madame Clapart:

My dear,Oscar has ruined me. During his journey in Pierrotin's coach, he spoke of Madame de Serizy's

behavior to his Excellency, who was travelling incognito, and actually told, to himself, the secret of his

terrible malady. After dismissing me from my stewardship, the count told me not to let Oscar sleep at Presles,

but to send him away immediately. Therefore, to obey his orders, the horses are being harnessed at this

moment to my wife's carriage, and Brochon, my stableman, will take the miserable child to you tonight.

We are, my wife and I, in a distress of mind which you may perhaps imagine, though I cannot describe it to

you. I will see you in a few days, for I must take another course. I have three children, and I ought to consider

their future. At present I do not know what to do; but I shall certainly endeavor to make the count aware of

what seventeen years of the life of a man like myself is worth. Owning at the present moment about two

hundred and fifty thousand francs, I want to raise myself to a fortune which may some day make me the equal

of his Excellency. At this moment I feel within me the power to move mountains and vanquish

insurmountable difficulties. What a lever is such a scene of bitter humiliation as I have just passed through!

Whose blood has Oscar in his veins? His conduct has been that of a blockhead; up to this moment when I

write to you, he has not said a word nor answered, even by a sign, the questions my wife and I have put to

him. Will he become an idiot? or is he one already? Dear friend, why did you not instruct him as to his

behavior before you sent him to me? How many misfortunes you would have spared me, had you brought

him here yourself as I begged you to do. If Estelle alarmed you, you might have stayed at Moisselles.

At eight o'clock that evening, Madame Clapart, just returned from a walk she had taken with her husband,

was knitting winter socks for Oscar, by the light of a single candle. Monsieur Clapart was expecting a friend

named Poiret, who often came in to play dominoes, for never did he allow himself to spend an evening at a

cafe. In spite of the prudent economy to which his small means forced him, Clapart would not have answered

for his temperance amid a luxury of food and in presence of the usual guests of a cafe whose inquisitive

"Why, no, my friend; the portress would have told us so when we came in," replied Madame Clapart.

"It wouldn't be the first time she has forgotten things for us,for God knows how people without means are

"Well," said the poor woman, to change the conversation and escape Clapart's cavilling, "Oscar must be at

Presles by this time. How he will enjoy that fine house and the beautiful park."

"Oh! yes," snarled Clapart, "you expect fine things of him; but, mark my words, there'll be squabbles

"Will you never cease to find fault with that poor child?" said the mother. "What has he done to you? If some

day we should live at our ease, we may owe it all to him; he has such a good heart"

"Our bones will be jelly long before that fellow makes his way in the world," cried Clapart. "You don't know

"Why don't you go to meet Poiret?" said the poor mother, struck to the heart by the diatribe she had brought

To bourgeois eyes, the obtaining of school prizes means the certainty of a fine future for the fortunate child.

This remark imposed silence for a moment on Clapart; but presently he began again.

"Besides, Madame Moreau hates him like poison, you know why. She'll try to set her husband against him.

Oscar to step into his shoes as steward of Presles! Why he'd have to learn agriculture, and know how to

"Hethat pussy cat! I'll bet that if he does get a place down there, it won't be a week before he does some

"Good God! how can you be so bitter against a poor child who is full of good qualities, sweettempered as an

Just then the cracking of a postilion's whip and the noise of a carriage stopping before the house was heard,

this arrival having apparently put the whole street into a commotion. Clapart, who heard the opening of many

"They have sent Oscar back to you in a postchaise," he cried, in a tone of satisfaction, though in truth he felt

"Good heavens! what can have happened to him?" cried the poor mother, trembling like a leaf shaken by the

"I don't know, but Monsieur Moreau is no longer steward of Presles, and they say your son has caused it. His

Excellency ordered that he should be sent home to you. Here's a letter from poor Monsieur Moreau, madame,

"Clapart, two glasses of wine for the postilion and for monsieur!" cried the mother, flinging herself into a

chair that she might read the fatal letter. "Oscar," she said, staggering towards her bed, "do you want to kill

She did not end her sentence, for she fainted from distress of mind. When she came to herself she heard her

"Go to bed, monsieur," she said to her son. "Let him alone, Monsieur Clapart. Don't drive him out of his

Oscar did not hear his mother's last words; he had slipped away to bed the instant that he got the order.

Those who remember their youth will not be surprised to learn that after a day so filled with events and

emotions, Oscar, in spite of the enormity of his offences, slept the sleep of the just. The next day he did not

find the world so changed as he thought it; he was surprised to be very hungry,he who the night before had

regarded himself as unworthy to live. He had only suffered mentally. At his age mental impressions succeed

each other so rapidly that the last weakens its predecessor, however deeply the first may have been cut in. For

this reason corporal punishment, though philanthropists are deeply opposed to it in these days, becomes

necessary in certain cases for certain children. It is, moreover, the most natural form of retribution, for Nature

herself employs it; she uses pain to impress a lasting memory of her precepts. If to the shame of the preceding

evening, unhappily too transient, the steward had joined some personal chastisement, perhaps the lesson

might have been complete. The discernment with which such punishment needs to be administered is the

greatest argument against it. Nature is never mistaken; but the teacher is, and frequently.

Madame Clapart took pains to send her husband out, so that she might be alone with her son the next

morning. She was in a state to excite pity. Her eyes, worn with tears; her face, weary with the fatigue of a

sleepless night; her feeble voice,in short, everything about her proved an excess of suffering she could not

When Oscar entered the room she signed to him to sit down beside her, and reminded him in a gentle but

grieved voice of the benefits they had so constantly received from the steward of Presles. She told him that

they had lived, especially for the last six years, on the delicate charity of Monsieur Moreau; and that

Monsieur Clapart's salary, also the "demibourse," or scholarship, by which he (Oscar) had obtained an

education, was due to the Comte de Serizy. Most of this would now cease. Monsieur Clapart, she said, had no

claim to a pension,his period of service not being long enough to obtain one. On the day when he was no

"For myself," she said, "by nursing the sick, or living as a housekeeper in some great family, I could support

myself and Monsieur Clapart; but you, Oscar, what could you do? You have no means, and you must earn

some, for you must live. There are but four careers for a young man like you,commerce, government

employment, the licensed professions, or military service. All forms of commerce need capital, and we have

none to give you. In place of capital, a young man can only give devotion and his capacity. But commerce

also demands the utmost discretion, and your conduct yesterday proves that you lack it. To enter a

government office, you must go through a long probation by the help of influence, and you have just

alienated the only protector that we had,a most powerful one. Besides, suppose you were to meet with

some extraordinary help, by which a young man makes his way promptly either in business or in the public

employ, where could you find the money to live and clothe yourself during the time that you are learning

Here the mother wandered, like other women, into wordy lamentation: What should she do now to feed the

family, deprived of the benefits Moreau's stewardship had enabled him to send her from Presles? Oscar had

overthrown his benefactor's prosperity! As commerce and a government clerkship were now impossible,

there remained only the professions of notary and lawyer, either barristers or solicitors, and sheriffs. But for

those he must study at least three years, and pay considerable sums for entrance fees, examinations,

certificates, and diplomas; and here again the question of maintenance presented itself.

"Oscar," she said, in conclusion, "in you I had put all my pride, all my life. In accepting for myself an

unhappy old age, I fastened my eyes on you; I saw you with the prospect of a fine career, and I imagined you

succeeding in it. That thought, that hope, gave me courage to face the privations I have endured for six years

in order to carry you through school, where you have cost me, in spite of the scholarship, between seven and

eight hundred francs a year. Now that my hope is vanishing, your future terrifies me. I cannot take one penny

from Monsieur Clapart's salary for my son. What can you do? You are not strong enough to mathematics to

enter any of the technical schools; and, besides, where could I get the three thousand francs boardmoney

which they extract? This is life as it is, my child. You are eighteen, you are strong. Enlist in the army; it is

Oscar knew as yet nothing whatever of life. Like all children who have been kept from a knowledge of the

trials and poverty of the home, he was ignorant of the necessity of earning his living. The word "commerce"

presented no idea whatever to his mind; "public employment" said almost as little, for he saw no results of it.

He listened, therefore, with a submissive air, which he tried to make humble, to his mother's exhortations, but

they were lost in the void, and did not reach his mind. Nevertheless, the word "army," the thought of being a

soldier, and the sight of his mother's tears did at last make him cry. No sooner did Madame Clapart see the

drops coursing down his cheeks than she felt herself helpless, and, like most mothers in such cases, she began

the peroration which terminates these scenes,scenes in which they suffer their own anguish and that of

"Well, Oscar, PROMISE me that you will be more discreet in future, that you will not talk heedlessly any

Oscar of course promised all his mother asked him to promise, and then, after gently drawing him to her,

"In future," she said, "you will listen to your mother, and will follow her advice; for a mother can give

nothing but good counsel to her child. We will go and see your uncle Cardot; that is our last hope. Cardot

owed a great deal to your father, who gave him his sister, Mademoiselle Husson, with an enormous dowry for

those days, which enabled him to make a large fortune in the silk trade. I think he might, perhaps, place you

with Monsieur Camusot, his successor and soninlaw, in the rue des Bourdonnais. But, you see, your uncle

Cardot has four children. He gave his establishment, the Cocon d'Or, to his eldest daughter, Madame

Camusot; and though Camusot has millions, he has also four children by two wives; and, besides, he scarcely

knows of our existence. Cardot has married his second daughter, Mariane, to Monsieur Protez, of the firm of

Protez and Chiffreville. The practice of his eldest son, the notary, cost him four hundred thousand francs; and

he has just put his second son, Joseph, into the drug business of Matifat. So you see, your uncle Cardot has

many reasons not to take an interest in you, whom he sees only four times a year. He has never come to call

upon me here, though he was ready enough to visit me at Madame Mere's when he wanted to sell his silks to

the Emperor, the imperial highnesses, and all the great people at court. But now the Camusots have turned

ultras. The eldest son of Camusot's first wife married a daughter of one of the king's ushers. The world is

mighty humpbacked when it stoops! However, it was a clever thing to do, for the Cocon d'Or has the

custom of the present court as it had that of the Emperor. But to morrow we will go and see your uncle

Cardot, and I hope that you will endeavor to behave properly; for, as I said before, and I repeat it, that is our

Monsieur JeanJeromeSeverin Cardot had been a widower six years. As headclerk of the Cocon d'Or, one

of the oldest firms in Paris, he had bought the establishment in 1793, at a time when the heads of the house

were ruined by the maximum; and the money of Mademoiselle Husson's dowry had enabled him to do this,

and so make a fortune that was almost colossal in ten years. To establish his children richly during his

lifetime, he had conceived the idea of buying an annuity for himself and his wife with three hundred thousand

francs, which gave him an income of thirty thousand francs a year. He then divided his capital into three

shares of four hundred thousand francs each, which he gave to three of his children,the Cocon d'Or, given

to his eldest daughter on her marriage, being the equivalent of a fourth share. Thus the worthy man, who was

now nearly seventy years old, could spend his thirty thousand a year as he pleased, without feeling that he

injured the prospects of his children, all finely provided for, whose attentions and proofs of affection were,

Uncle Cardot lived at Belleville, in one of the first houses above the Courtille. He there occupied, on the first

floor, an apartment overlooking the valley of the Seine, with a southern exposure, and the exclusive

enjoyment of a large garden, for the sum of a thousand francs a year. He troubled himself not at all about the

three or four other tenants of the same vast countryhouse. Certain, through a long lease, of ending his days

there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot,both

of whom expected to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man's death. These two

women took the utmost care of him, and were all the more interested in doing so because no one was ever

less fussy or less faultfinding than he. The apartment, furnished by the late Madame Cardot, had remained

in the same condition for the last six years,the old man being perfectly contented with it. He spent in all

not more than three thousand francs a year there; for he dined in Paris five days in the week, and returned

home at midnight in a hackneycoach, which belonged to an establishment at Courtille. The cook had only

her master's breakfast to provide on those days. This was served at eleven o'clock; after that he dressed and

perfumed himself, and departed for Paris. Usually, a bourgeois gives notice in the household if he dines out;

This little old manfat, rosy, squat, and strongalways looked, in popular speech, as if he had stepped

from a bandbox. He appeared in black silk stockings, breeches of "poudesoie" (paduasoy), a white pique

waistcoat, dazzling shirtfront, a bluebottle coat, violet silk gloves, gold buckles to his shoes and his

breeches, and, lastly, a touch of powder and a little queue tied with black ribbon. His face was remarkable for

a pair of eyebrows as thick as bushes, beneath which sparkled his gray eyes; and for a square nose, thick and

long, which gave him somewhat the air of the abbes of former times. His countenance did not belie him. Pere

Cardot belonged to that race of lively Gerontes which is now disappearing rapidly, though it once served as

Turcarets to the comedies and tales of the eighteenth century. Uncle Cardot always said "Fair lady," and he

placed in their carriages, and otherwise paid attention to those women whom he saw without protectors; he

But beneath his calm air and his snowy poll he concealed an old age almost wholly given up to mere

pleasure. Among men he openly professed epicureanism, and gave himself the license of free talk. He had

seen no harm in the devotion of his soninlaw, Camusot, to Mademoiselle Coralie, for he himself was

secretly the Mecaenas of Mademoiselle Florentine, the first danseuse at the Gaiete. But this life and these

opinions never appeared in his own home, nor in his external conduct before the world. Uncle Cardot, grave

and polite, was thought to be somewhat cold, so much did he affect decorum; a "devote" would have called

The worthy old gentleman hated priests; he belonged to that great flock of ninnies who subscribed to the

"Constitutionnel," and was much concerned about "refusals to bury." He adored Voltaire, though his

preferences were really for Piron, Vade, and Colle. Naturally, he admired Beranger, whom he wittily called

the "grandfather of the religion of Lisette." His daughters, Madame Camusot and Madame Protez, and his

two sons would, to use a popular expression, have been flabbergasted if any one had explained to them what

This longheaded parent had never mentioned his income to his children, who, seeing that he lived in a cheap

way, reflected that he had deprived himself of his property for their sakes, and, therefore, redoubled their

Camusot, in whom he recognized a certain likeness to his own nature, and whom he liked enough to make a

sharer in his secret pleasures, alone knew of the thirty thousand a year annuity. But Camusot approved of the

old man's ethics, and thought that, having made the happiness of his children and nobly fulfilled his duty by

"Don't you see, my friend," said the former master of the Cocon d'Or, "I might remarry. A young woman

would give me more children. Well, Florentine doesn't cost me what a wife would; neither does she bore me;

Camusot considered that Pere Cardot gave expression to a high sense of family duty in these words; he

"He knows," thought he, "how to unite the interests of his children with the pleasures which old age naturally

Neither the Cardots, nor the Camusots, nor the Protez knew anything of the ways of life of their aunt Clapart.

The family intercourse was restricted to the sending of notes of "faire part" on the occasion of deaths and

marriages, and cards at the New Year. The proud Madame Clapart would never have brought herself to seek

them were it not for Oscar's interests, and because of her friendship for Moreau, the only person who had

been faithful to her in misfortune. She had never annoyed old Cardot by her visits, or her importunities, but

she held to him as to a hope, and always went to see him once every three months and talked to him of Oscar,

the nephew of the late respectable Madame Cardot; and she took the boy to call upon him three times during

each vacation. At each of these visits the old gentleman had given Oscar a dinner at the CadranBleu, taking

him, afterwards, to the Gaiete, and returning him safely to the rue de la Cerisaie. On one occasion, having

given the boy an entirely new suit of clothes, he added the silver cup and fork and spoon required for his

Oscar's mother endeavored to impress the old gentleman with the idea that his nephew cherished him, and she

constantly referred to the cup and the fork and spoon and to the beautiful suit of clothes, though nothing was

then left of the latter but the waistcoat. But such little arts did Oscar more harm than good when practised on

so sly an old fox as uncle Cardot. The latter had never much liked his departed wife, a tall, spare, redhaired

woman; he was also aware of the circumstances of the late Husson's marriage with Oscar's mother, and

without in the least condemning her, he knew very well that Oscar was a posthumous child. His nephew,

therefore, seemed to him to have no claims on the Cardot family. But Madame Clapart, like all women who

concentrate their whole being into the sentiment of motherhood, did not put herself in Cardot's place and see

the matter from his point of view; she thought he must certainly be interested in so sweet a child, who bore

"Monsieur," said old Cardot's maidservant, coming out to him as he walked about the garden while awaiting

his breakfast, after his hairdresser had duly shaved him and powdered his queue, "the mother of your nephew,

"Goodday, fair lady," said the old man, bowing to Madame Clapart, and wrapping his white pique

dressinggown about him. "Hey, hey! how this little fellow grows," he added, taking Oscar by the ear.

"He has finished school, and he regretted so much that his dear uncle was not present at the distribution of the

Henri IV. prizes, at which he was named. The name of Husson, which, let us hope, he will bear worthily, was

"The deuce it was!" exclaimed the little old man, stopping short. Madame Clapart, Oscar, and he were

walking along a terrace flanked by oranges, myrtles, and pomegranates. "And what did he get?"

"Oh! oh!" cried uncle Cardot, "the rascal has a good deal to do to make up for lost time; for the fourth rank in

philosophy, well, IT ISN'T PERU, you know! You will stay and breakfast with me?" he added.

"We are at your orders," replied Madame Clapart. "Ah! my dear Monsieur Cardot, what happiness it is for

fathers and mothers when their children make a good start in life! In this respectindeed, in all others," she

added, catching herself up, "you are one of the most fortunate fathers I have ever known. Under your virtuous

soninlaw and your amiable daughter, the Cocon d'Or continues to be the greatest establishment of its kind

in Paris. And here's your eldest son, for the last ten years at the head of a fine practice and married to wealth.

And you have such charming little granddaughters! You are, as it were, the head of four great families. Leave

"Why, he's eighteen years old!" said uncle Cardot, smiling at this injunction, which made an infant of Oscar.

"Alas, yes, he is eighteen, my good Monsieur Cardot; and after bringing him so far, sound and healthy in

mind and body, neither bow legged nor crooked, after sacrificing everything to give him an education, it

"That Monsieur Moreau who got him the scholarship will be sure to look after his career," said uncle Cardot,

"Monsieur Moreau may die," she said. "And besides, he has quarrelled irrevocably with the Comte de Serizy,

"No, monsieur," said Oscar's mother, interrupting the old man, who, out of courtesy to the "fair lady,"

repressed his annoyance at being interrupted. "Alas, you do not know the miseries of a mother who, for seven

years past, has been forced to take a sum of six hundred francs a year for her son's education from the

miserable eighteen hundred francs of her husband's salary. Yes, monsieur, that is all we have had to live

upon. Therefore, what more can I do for my poor Oscar? Monsieur Clapart so hates the child that it is

impossible for me to keep him in the house. A poor woman, alone in the world, am I not right to come and

"Yes, you are right," said uncle Cardot. "You never told me of all this before."

"Ah, monsieur!" replied Madame Clapart, proudly, "you were the last to whom I would have told my

wretchedness. It is all my own fault; I married a man whose incapacity is almost beyond belief. Yes, I am,

"Listen to me, madame," said the little old man, "and don't weep; it is most painful to me to see a fair lady

cry. After all, your son bears the name of Husson, and if my dear deceased wife were living she would wish

"But all my fortune is given to my children, who expect nothing from me at my death," continued the old

man. "I have divided among them the millions that I had, because I wanted to see them happy and enjoying

their wealth during my lifetime. I have nothing now except an annuity; and at my age one clings to old habits.

Do you know the path on which you ought to start this young fellow?" he went on, after calling to Oscar and

taking him by the arm. "Let him study law; I'll pay the costs. Put him in a lawyer's office and let him learn the

business of pettifogging; if he does well, if he distinguishes himself, if he likes his profession and I am still

alive, each of my children shall, when the proper time comes, lend him a quarter of the cost of a practice; and

I will be security for him. You will only have to feed and clothe him. Of course he'll sow a few wild oats, but

he'll learn life. Look at me: I left Lyon with two double louis which my grandmother gave me, and walked to

Paris; and what am I now? Fasting is good for the health. Discretion, honesty, and work, young man, and

you'll succeed. There's a great deal of pleasure in earning one's fortune; and if a man keeps his teeth he eats

what he likes in his old age, and sings, as I do, 'La Mere Godichon.' Remember my words: Honesty, work,

"Do you hear that, Oscar?" said his mother. "Your uncle sums up in three words all that I have been saying to

"Very good,then thank your uncle; didn't you hear him say he would take charge of your future? You will

"He doesn't see the grandeur of his destiny," said the little old man, observing Oscar's apathetic air. "Well,

he's just out of school. Listen, I'm no talker," he continued; "but I have this to say: Remember that at your age

honesty and uprightness are maintained only by resisting temptations; of which, in a great city like Paris,

there are many at every step. Live in your mother's home, in the garret; go straight to the lawschool; from

there to your lawyer's office; drudge night and day, and study at home. Become, by the time you are twenty

two, a second clerk; by the time you are twentyfour, headclerk; be steady, and you will win all. If,

moreover, you shouldn't like the profession, you might enter the office of my son the notary, and eventually

succeed him. Therefore, work, patience, discretion, honesty,those are your landmarks."

"God grant that you may live thirty years longer to see your fifth child realizing all we expect from him,"

cried Madame Clapart, seizing uncle Cardot's hand and pressing it with a gesture that recalled her youth.

During the meal uncle Cardot observed his nephew without appearing to do so, and soon saw that the lad

"Send him here to me now and then," he said to Madame Clapart, as he bade her goodbye, "and I'll form

This visit calmed the anxieties of the poor mother, who had not hoped for such brilliant success. For the next

fortnight she took Oscar to walk daily, and watched him tyrannically. This brought matters to the end of

October. One morning as the poor household was breakfasting on a salad of herring and lettuce, with milk for

a dessert, Oscar beheld with terror the formidable exsteward, who entered the room and surprised this scene

"We are now living in Parisbut not as we lived at Presles," said Moreau, wishing to make known to

Madame Clapart the change in their relations caused by Oscar's folly. "I shall seldom be here myself; for I

have gone into partnership with Pere Leger and Pere Margueron of Beaumont. We are speculating in land,

and we have begun by purchasing the estate of Persan. I am the head of the concern, which has a capital of a

million; part of which I have borrowed on my own securities. When I find a good thing, Pere Leger and I

examine it; my partners have each a quarter and I a half in the profits; but I do nearly all the work, and for

that reason I shall be constantly on the road. My wife lives here, in the faubourg du Roule, very plainly.

When we see how the business turns out, if we risk only the profits, and if Oscar behaves himself, we may,

"Ah! my friend, the catastrophe caused by my poor boy's heedlessness may prove to be the cause of your

making a brilliant fortune; for, really and truly, you were burying your energy and your capacity at Presles."

Madame Clapart then went on to relate her visit to uncle Cardot, in order to show Moreau that neither she nor

"He is right, that old fellow," said the exsteward. "We must hold Oscar in that path with an iron hand, and

he will end as a barrister or a notary. But he mustn't leave the track; he must go straight through with it. Ha! I

know how to help you. The legal business of landagents is quite important, and I have heard of a lawyer

who has just bought what is called a "titre nu"; that means a practice without clients. He is a young man, hard

as an iron bar, eager for work, ferociously active. His name is Desroches. I'll offer him our business on

condition that he takes Oscar as a pupil; and I'll ask him to let the boy live with him at nine hundred francs a

year, of which I will pay three, so that your son will cost you only six hundred francs, without his living, in

future. If the boy ever means to become a man it can only be under a discipline like that. He'll come out of

"Come, Oscar; thank our kind Monsieur Moreau, and don't stand there like a stone post. All young men who

commit follies have not the good fortune to meet with friends who still take an interest in their career, even

"The best way to make your peace with me," said Moreau, pressing Oscar's hand, "is to work now with

Ten days later, Oscar was taken by Monsieur Moreau to Maitre Desroches, solicitor, recently established in

the rue de Bethisy, in a vast apartment at the end of a narrow courtyard, for which he was paying a

Desroches, a young man twentysix years of age, born of poor parents, and brought up with extreme severity

by a stern father, had himself known the condition in which Oscar now was. Accordingly, he felt an interest

in him, but the sort of interest which alone he could take, checked by the apparent harshness that

characterized him. The aspect of this gaunt young man, with a muddy skin and hair cropped like a

clothesbrush, who was curt of speech and possessed a piercing eye and a gloomy vivaciousness, terrified the

"We work here day and night," said the lawyer, from the depths of his armchair, and behind a table on which

were papers, piled up like Alps. "Monsieur Moreau, we won't kill him; but he'll have to go at our pace.

"Monsieur Godeschal, here's the pupil of whom I spoke to you. Monsieur Moreau takes the liveliest interest

in him. He will dine with us and sleep in the small attic next to your chamber. You will allot the exact time it

takes to go to the lawschool and back, so that he does not lose five minutes on the way. You will see that he

learns the Code and is proficient in his classes; that is to say, after he has done his work here, you will give

him authors to read. In short, he is to be under your immediate direction, and I shall keep an eye on it. They

want to make him what you have made yourself, a capable headclerk, against the time when he can take

such a place himself. Go with Monsieur Godeschal, my young friend; he'll show you your lodging, and you

can settle down in it. Did you notice Godeschal?" continued Desroches, speaking to Moreau. "There's a

fellow who, like me, has nothing. His sister Mariette, the famous danseuse, is laying up her money to buy

him a practice in ten years. My clerks are young blades who have nothing but their ten fingers to rely upon.

So we all, my five clerks and I, work as hard as a dozen ordinary fellows. But in ten years I'll have the finest

practice in Paris. In my office, business and clients are a passion, and that's beginning to make itself felt. I

took Godeschal from Derville, where he was only just made second clerk. He gets a thousand francs a year

from me, and food and lodging. But he's worth it; he is indefatigable. I love him, that fellow! He has managed

to live, as I did when a clerk, on six hundred francs a year. What I care for above all is honesty, spotless

integrity; and when it is practised in such poverty as that, a man's a man. For the slightest fault of that kind a

For two whole years Oscar lived in the rue de Bethisy, a den of pettifogging; for if ever that superannuated

expression was applicable to a lawyer's office, it was so in this case. Under this supervision, both petty and

able, he was kept to his regular hours and to his work with such rigidity that his life in the midst of Paris was

At five in the morning, in all weathers, Godeschal woke up. He went down with Oscar to the office, where

they always found their master up and working. Oscar then did the errands of the office and prepared his

lessons for the lawschool,and prepared them elaborately; for Godeschal, and frequently Desroches

himself, pointed out to their pupil authors to be looked through and difficulties to overcome. He was not

allowed to leave a single section of the Code until he had thoroughly mastered it to the satisfaction of his

chief and Godeschal, who put him through preliminary examinations more searching and longer than those of

the lawschool. On his return from his classes, where he was kept but a short time, he went to his work in the

office; occasionally he was sent to the Palais, but always under the thumb of the rigid Godeschal, till dinner.

The dinner was that of his master, one dish of meat, one of vegetables, and a salad. The dessert consisted

of a piece of Gruyere cheese. After dinner, Godeschal and Oscar returned to the office and worked till night.

Once a month Oscar went to breakfast with his uncle Cardot, and he spent the Sundays with his mother. From

time to time Moreau, when he came to the office about his own affairs, would take Oscar to dine in the

PalaisRoyal, and to some theatre in the evening. Oscar had been so snubbed by Godeschal and by

Desroches for his attempts at elegance that he no longer gave a thought to his clothes.

"A good clerk," Godeschal told him, "should have two black coats, one new, one old, a pair of black trousers,

black stockings, and shoes. Boots cost too much. You can't have boots till you are called to the bar. A clerk

should never spend more than seven hundred francs a year. Good stout shirts of strong linen are what you

want. Ha! when a man starts from nothing to reach fortune, he has to keep down to bare necessities. Look at

Godeschal preached by example. If he professed the strictest principles of honor, discretion, and honesty, he

practised them without assumption, as he walked, as he breathed; such action was the natural play of his soul,

as walking and breathing were the natural play of his organs. Eighteen months after Oscar's installation into

the office, the second clerk was, for the second time, slightly wrong in his accounts, which were

comparatively unimportant. Godeschal said to him in presence of all the other clerks:

"My dear Gaudet, go away from here of your own free will, that it may not be said that Monsieur Desroches

has dismissed you. You have been careless or absentminded, and neither of those defects can pass here. The

master shall know nothing about the matter; that is all that I can do for a comrade."

At twenty years of age, Oscar became third clerk in the office. Though he earned no salary, he was lodged

and fed, for he did the work of the second clerk. Desroches employed two chief clerks, and the work of the

second was unremitting toil. By the end of his second year in the law school Oscar knew more than most

licensed graduates; he did the work at the Palais intelligently, and argued some cases in chambers. Godeschal

and Desroches were satisfied with him. And yet, though he now seemed a sensible man, he showed, from

time to time, a hankering after pleasure and a desire to shine, repressed, though it was, by the stern discipline

Moreau, satisfied with Oscar's progress, relaxed, in some degree, his watchfulness; and when, in July, 1825,

Oscar passed his examinations with a spotless record, the landagent gave him the money to dress himself

elegantly. Madame Clapart, proud and happy in her son, prepared the outfit splendidly for the rising lawyer.

In the month of November, when the courts reopened, Oscar Husson occupied the chamber of the second

clerk, whose work he now did wholly. He had a salary of eight hundred francs with board and lodging.

Consequently, uncle Cardot, who went privately to Desroches and made inquiries about his nephew,

promised Madame Clapart to be on the lookout for a practice for Oscar, if he continued to do as well in the

In spite of these virtuous appearances, Oscar Husson was undergoing a great strife in his inmost being. At

times he thought of quitting a life so directly against his tastes and his nature. He felt that galleyslaves were

happier than he. Galled by the collar of this iron system, wild desires seized him to fly when he compared

himself in the street with the welldressed young men whom he met. Sometimes he was driven by a sort of

madness towards women; then, again, he resigned himself, but only to fall into a deeper disgust for life.

Impelled by the example of Godeschal, he was forced, rather than led of himself, to remain in that rugged

Godeschal, who watched and took note of Oscar, made it a matter of principle not to allow his pupil to be

exposed to temptation. Generally the young clerk was without money, or had so little that he could not, if he

would, give way to excess. During the last year, the worthy Godeschal had made five or six parties of

pleasure with Oscar, defraying the expenses, for he felt that the rope by which he tethered the young kid must

be slackened. These "pranks," as he called them, helped Oscar to endure existence, for there was little

amusement in breakfasting with his uncle Cardot, and still less in going to see his mother, who lived even

more penuriously than Desroches. Moreau could not make himself familiar with Oscar as Godeschal could;

and perhaps that sincere friend to young Husson was behind Godeschal in these efforts to initiate the poor

youth safely into the mysteries of life. Oscar, grown prudent, had come, through contact with others, to see

the extent and the character of the fault he had committed on that luckless journey; but the volume of his

repressed fancies and the follies of youth might still get the better of him. Nevertheless, the more knowledge

he could get of the world and its laws, the better his mind would form itself, and, provided Godeschal never

lost sight of him, Moreau flattered himself that between them they could bring the son of Madame Clapart

"How is he getting on?" asked the landagent of Godeschal on his return from one of his journeys which had

"Always too much vanity," replied Godeschal. "You give him fine clothes and fine linen, he wears the

shirtfronts of a stockbroker, and so my dainty coxcomb spends his Sundays in the Tuileries, looking out for

adventures. What else can you expect? That's youth. He torments me to present him to my sister, where he

would see a pretty sort of society!actresses, balletdancers, elegant young fops, spendthrifts who are

wasting their fortunes! His mind, I'm afraid, is not fitted for law. He can talk well, though; and if we could

make him a barrister he might plead cases that were carefully prepared for him."

In the month of November, 1825, soon after Oscar Husson had taken possession of his new clerkship, and at

the moment when he was about to pass his examination for the licentiate's degree, a new clerk arrived to take

This fourth clerk, named Frederic Marest, intended to enter the magistracy, and was now in his third year at

the law school. He was a fine young man of twentythree, enriched to the amount of some twelve thousand

francs a year by the death of a bachelor uncle, and the son of Madame Marest, widow of the wealthy

woodmerchant. This future magistrate, actuated by a laudable desire to understand his vocation in its

smallest details, had put himself in Desroches' office for the purpose of studying legal procedure, and of

training himself to take a place as headclerk in two years. He hoped to do his "stage" (the period between

the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a

post which would surely not be refused to a rich young man. To see himself, by the time he was thirty,

"procureur du roi" in any court, no matter where, was his sole ambition. Though Frederic Marest was

cousingerman to Georges Marest, the latter not having told his surname in Pierrotin's coucou, Oscar Husson

"Messieurs," said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the clerks, "I announce to you the arrival of a

new jurisconsult; and as he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious entrancefee."

"Forward, the book!" cried Oscar, nodding to the youngest clerk, "and pray let us be serious."

The youngest clerk climbed like a squirrel along the shelves which lined the room, until he could reach a

We must explain the perennial joke of this book, then much in vogue in legal offices. In a clerical life where

work is the rule, amusement is all the more treasured because it is rare; but, above all, a hoax or a practical

joke is enjoyed with delight. This fancy or custom does, to a certain extent, explain Georges Marest's

behavior in the coucou. The gravest and most gloomy clerk is possessed, at times, with a craving for fun and

quizzing. The instinct with which a set of young clerks will seize and develop a hoax or a practical joke is

really marvellous. The denizens of a studio and of a lawyer's office are, in this line, superior to comedians.

In buying a practice without clients, Desroches began, as it were, a new dynasty. This circumstance made a

break in the usages relative to the reception of newcomers. Moreover, Desroches having taken an office

where legal documents had never yet been scribbled, had bought new tables, and white boxes edged with

blue, also new. His staff was made up of clerks coming from other officers, without mutual ties, and

surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together. Godeschal, who had served his apprenticeship under

Maitre Derville, was not the sort of clerk to allow the precious tradition of the "welcome" to be lost. This

"welcome" is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the "ancients" of the office into which he enters.

Now, about the time when Oscar came to the office, during the first six months of Desroches' installation, on

a winter evening when the work had been got through more quickly than usual, and the clerks were warming

themselves before the fire preparatory to departure, it came into Godeschal's head to construct and compose a

derived through the procureur of the ChateletBordin, the immediate predecessor of Sauvaguest, the attorney,

from whom Desroches had bought his practice. The work, which was highly approved by the other clerks,

was begun by a search through all the dealers in old paper for a register, made of paper with the mark of the

eighteenth century, duly bound in parchment, on which should be the stamp of an order in council. Having

found such a volume it was left about in the dust, on the stove, on the ground, in the kitchen, and even in

what the clerks called the "chamber of deliberations"; and thus it obtained a mouldiness to delight an

antiquary, cracks of aged dilapidation, and broken corners that looked as though the rats had gnawed them;

also, the gilt edges were tarnished with surprising perfection. As soon as the book was duly prepared, the

entries were made. The following extracts will show to the most obtuse mind the purpose to which the office

of Maitre Desroches devoted this register, the first sixty pages of which were filled with reports of fictitious

cases. On the first page appeared as follows, in the legal spelling of the eighteenth century:

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so be it. This day, the feast of our lady SaincteGeneviesve,

patron saint of Paris, under whose protection have existed, since the year 1525 the clerks of this Practice, we

the undersigned, clerks and sub clerks of Maistre JerosmeSebastien Bordin, successor to the late Guerbet,

in his lifetime procureur at the Chastelet, do hereby recognize the obligation under which we lie to renew and

continue the register and the archives of installation of the clerks of this noble Practice, a glorious member of

the Kingdom of Basoche, the which register, being now full in consequence of the many acts and deeds of

our wellbeloved predecessors, we have consigned to the Keeper of the Archives of the Palais for

safekeeping, with the registers of other ancient Practices; and we have ourselves gone, each and all, to hear

mass at the parish church of Saint Severin to solemnize the inauguration of this our new register.

In witness whereof we have hereunto signed our names: Malin, head clerk; Grevin, secondclerk; Athanase

Feret, clerk; Jacques Heret, clerk; Regnault de SaintJeand'Angely, clerk; Bedeau, youngest clerk and

After the mass aforesaid was heard, we conveyed ourselves to Courtille, where, at the common charge, we

ordered a fine breakfast; which did not end till seven o'clock the next morning.

This was marvellously well engrossed. An expert would have said that it was written in the eighteenth

century. Twentyseven reports of receptions of neophytes followed, the last in the fatal year of 1792. Then

came a blank of fourteen years; after which the register began again, in 1806, with the appointment of Bordin

as attorney before the first Court of the Seine. And here follows the deed which proclaimed the reconstitution

God in his mercy willed that, in spite of the fearful storms which have cruelly ravaged the land of France,

now become a great Empire, the archives of the very celebrated Practice of Maitre Bordin should be

preserved; and we, the undersigned, clerks of the very virtuous and very worthy Maitre Bordin, do not

hesitate to attribute this unheardof preservation, when all titles, privileges, and charters were lost, to the

protection of Sainte Genevieve, patron Saint of this office, and also to the reverence which the last of the

procureurs of noble race had for all that belonged to ancient usages and customs. In the uncertainty of

knowing the exact part of SainteGenevieve and Maitre Bordin in this miracle, we have resolved, each of us,

to go to SaintEtienne du Mont and there hear mass, which will be said before the altar of that

HolyShepherdess who sends us sheep to shear, and also to offer a breakfast to our master Bordin, hoping

Signed: Oignard, first clerk; Poidevin, second clerk; Proust, clerk; Augustin Coret, subclerk.

At three in the afternoon, the abovenamed clerks hereby return their grateful thanks to their excellent

master, who regaled them at the establishment of the Sieur Rolland restaurateur, rue du Hasard, with

exquisite wines of three regions, to wit: Bordeaux, Champagne, and Burgundy, also with dishes most

carefully chosen, between the hours of four in the afternoon to halfpast seven in the evening. Coffee, ices,

and liqueurs were in abundance. But the presence of the master himself forbade the chanting of hymns of

praise in clerical stanzas. No clerk exceeded the bounds of amiable gayety, for the worthy, respectable, and

generous patron had promised to take his clerks to see Talma in "Brittanicus," at the TheatreFrancais. Long

life to Maitre Bordin! May God shed favors on his venerable pow! May he sell dear so glorious a practice!

May the rich clients for whom he prays arrive! May his bills of costs and charges be paid in a trice! May our

masters to come be like him! May he ever be loved by clerks in other worlds than this!

Here followed thirtythree reports of various receptions of new clerks, distinguished from one another by

different writing and different inks, also by quotations, signatures, and praises of good cheer and wines,

which seemed to show that each report was written and signed on the spot, "inter pocula."

Finally, under date of the month of June, 1822, the period when Desroches took the oath, appears this

I, the undersigned, FrancoisClaudeMarie Godeschal, called by Maitre Desroches to perform the difficult

functions of headclerk in a Practice where the clients have to be created, having learned through Maitre

Derville, from whose office I come, of the existence of the famous archives architriclinobasochien, so

celebrated at the Palais, have implored our gracious master to obtain them from his predecessor; for it has

become of the highest importance to recover a document bearing date of the year 1786, which is connected

with other documents deposited for safekeeping at the Palais, the existence of which has been certified to by

Messrs. Terrasse and Duclos, keepers of records, by the help of which we may go back to the year 1525, and

find historical indications of the utmost value on the manners, customs, and cookery of the clerical race.

Having received a favorable answer to this request, the present office has this day been put in possession of

these proofs of the worship in which our predecessors held the Goddess Bottle and good living.

In consequence thereof, for the edification of our successors, and to renew the chain of years and goblets, I,

the said Godeschal, have invited Messieurs Doublet, second clerk; Vassal, third clerk; Herisson and

Grandemain, clerks; and Dumets, subclerk, to breakfast, Sunday next, at the "Cheval Rouge," on the Quai

Saint Bernard, where we will celebrate the victory of obtaining this volume which contains the Charter of

This day, Sunday, June 27th, were imbibed twelve bottles of twelve different wines, regarded as exquisite;

also were devoured melons, "pates au jus romanum," and a fillet of beef with mushroom sauce. Mademoiselle

Mariette, the illustrious sister of our headclerk and leading lady of the Royal Academy of music and

dancing, having obligingly put at the disposition of this Practice orchestra seats for the performance of this

evening, it is proper to make this record of her generosity. Moreover, it is hereby decreed that the aforesaid

clerks shall convey themselves in a body to that noble demoiselle to thank her in person, and declare to her

that on the occasion of her first lawsuit, if the devil sends her one, she shall pay the money laid out upon it,

And our headclerk Godeschal has been and is hereby proclaimed a flower of Basoche, and, more especially,

a good fellow. May a man who treats so well be soon in treaty for a Practice of his own!

On this record were stains of wine, pates, and candlegrease. To exhibit the stamp of truth that the writers

had managed to put upon these records, we may here give the report of Oscar's own pretended reception:

This day, Monday, November 25th, 1822, after a session held yesterday at the rue de la Cerisaie, Arsenal

quarter, at the house of Madame Clapart, mother of the candidatebasochien Oscar Husson, we, the

undersigned, declare that the repast of admission surpassed our expectations. It was composed of radishes,

pink and black, gherkins, anchovies, butter and olives for horsd'oeuvre; a succulent soup of rice, bearing

testimony to maternal solicitude, for we recognized therein a delicious taste of poultry; indeed, by

acknowledgment of the new member, we learned that the gibbets of a fine stew prepared by the hands of

Madame Clapart herself had been judiciously inserted into the family souppot with a care that is never taken

Item: a tongue of beef with tomatoes, which rendered us all tonguetied automatoes.

Item: a compote of pigeons with caused us to think the angels had had a finger in it.

Item: a dessert composed of eleven delicate dishes, among which we remarked (in spite of the tipsiness

caused by sixteen bottles of the choicest wines) a compote of peaches of august and mirobolant delicacy.

The wines of Roussillon and those of the banks of the Rhone completely effaced those of Champagne and

Burgundy. A bottle of maraschino and another of kirsch did, in spite of the exquisite coffee, plunge us into so

marked an oenological ecstasy that we found ourselves at a late hour in the Bois de Boulogne instead of our

In the statutes of our Order there is one rule which is rigidly enforced; namely, to allow all candidates for the

privilege of Basoche to limit the magnificence of their feast of welcome to the length of their purse; for it is

publicly notorious that no one delivers himself up to Themis if he has a fortune, and every clerk is, alas,

sternly curtailed by his parents. Consequently, we hereby record with the highest praise the liberal conduct of

Madame Clapart, widow, by her first marriage, of Monsieur Husson, father of the candidate, who is worthy

Three clerks had already been deceived by the Book, and three real "receptions of welcome," were recorded

The day after the arrival of each neophyte, the little subclerk (the errandboy and "gutterjumper") laid

upon the newcomer's desk the "Archives ArchitriclinoBasochiennes," and the clerks enjoyed the sight of

his countenance as he studied its facetious pages. Inter pocula each candidate had learned the secret of the

We see now why Oscar, become in his turn participator in the hoax, called out to the little clerk, "Forward,

Ten minutes later a handsome young man, with a fine figure and pleasant face, presented himself, asked for

"Monsieur Husson," said Godeschal to Oscar, "show monsieur his seat and tell him about the customs of the

The next day the new clerk found the register lying on his desk. He took it up, but after reading a few pages

he began to laugh, said nothing to the assembled clerks, and laid the book down again.

"Messieurs," he said, when the hour of departure came at five o'clock, "I have a cousin who is head clerk of

the notary Maitre Leopold Hannequin; I will ask his advice as to what I ought to do for my welcome."

"That looks ill," cried Godeschal, when Frederic had gone, "he hasn't the cut of a novice, that fellow!"

The following day, at two o'clock, a young man entered the office, whom Oscar recognized as Georges

"I should think so! We got into a scrape together," replied Georges, "about two years ago. Yes, I had to leave

"Oh, nothing!" replied Georges, at a sign from Oscar. "We tried to hoax a peer of France, and he bowled us

And he presented the famous register, pointing to a place where sentence of banishment was passed on a

refractory who was stated to have been forced, for acts of dishonesty, to leave the office in 1788.

"Well, well," he said, "my cousin and I are rich, and we'll give you a fete such as you never had

before,something to stimulate your imaginations for that register. Tomorrow (Sunday) you are bidden to

the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock. Afterwards, I'll take you to spend the evening with Madame la

Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos, where we shall play cards, and you'll see the elite of the women of

fashion. Therefore, gentleman of the lower courts," he added, with notarial assumption, "you will have to

"Hurrah!" cried the office like one man. "Bravo! very well! vivat! Long live the Marests!"

"What's all this about?" asked Desroches, coming out from his private office. "Ah! is that you, Georges? I

"Here," he said, opening his cashbox, "are five hundred francs. Go to the Palais, and get from the registrar a

copy of the decision in Vandernesse against Vandernesse; it must be served tonight if possible. I have

promised a PROD of twenty francs to Simon. Wait for the copy if it is not ready. Above all, don't let yourself

be fooled; for Derville is capable, in the interest of his clients, to stick a spoke in our wheel. Count Felix de

Vandernesse is more powerful than his brother, our client, the ambassador. Therefore keep your eyes open,

Oscar departed with the full intention of distinguishing himself in this little skirmish,the first affair

After the departure of Georges and Oscar, Godeschal sounded the new clerk to discover the joke which, as he

thought, lay behind this Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos. But Frederic, with the coolness and gravity

of a king's attorney, continued his cousin's hoax, and by his way of answering, and his manner generally, he

succeeded in making the office believe that the marquise might really be the widow of a Spanish grandee, to

whom his cousin Georges was paying his addresses. Born in Mexico, and the daughter of Creole parents, this

young and wealthy widow was noted for the easy manners and habits of the women of those climates.

"She loves to laugh, she loves to sing, she loves to drink like me!" he said in a low voice, quoting the

wellknown song of Beranger. "Georges," he added, "is very rich; he has inherited from his father (who was

a widower) eighteen thousand francs a year, and with the twelve thousand which an uncle has just left to each

of us, he has an income of thirty thousand. So he pays his debts, and gives up the law. He hopes to be

Marquis de las Florentinas, for the young widow is marquise in her own right, and has the privilege of giving

Though the clerks were still a good deal undecided in mind as to the marquise, the double perspective of a

breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale and a fashionable festivity put them into a state of joyous expectation.

They reserved all points as to the Spanish lady, intending to judge her without appeal after the meeting.

The Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos was neither more nor less than Mademoiselle AgatheFlorentine

Cabirolle, first danseuse at the Gaiete, with whom uncle Cardot was in the habit of singing "Mere Godichon."

A year after the very reparable loss of Madame Cardot, the successful merchant encountered Florentine as

she was leaving Coulon's dancingclass. Attracted by the beauty of that choregraphic flower (Florentine was

then about thirteen years of age), he followed her to the rue Pastourel, where he found that the future star of

the ballet was the daughter of a portress. Two weeks later, the mother and daughter, established in the rue de

Crussol, were enjoying a modest competence. It was to this protector of the artsto use the consecrated

phrasethat the theatre owed the brilliant danseuse. The generous Maecenas made two beings almost beside

themselves with joy in the possession of mahogany furniture, hangings, carpets, and a regular kitchen; he

allowed them a womanofallwork, and gave them two hundred and fifty francs a month for their living.

Pere Cardot, with his hair in "pigeonwings," seemed like an angel, and was treated with the attention due to

For three years the warbler of "Mere Godichon" had the wise policy to keep Mademoiselle Cabirolle and her

mother in this little apartment, which was only ten steps from the theatre; but he gave the girl, out of love for

the choregraphic art, the great Vestris for a master. In 1820 he had the pleasure of seeing Florentine dance her

first "pas" in the ballet of a melodrama entitled "The Ruins of Babylon." Florentine was then about sixteen.

Shortly after this debut Pere Cardot became an "old screw" in the eyes of his protegee; but as he had the sense

to see that a danseuse at the Gaiete had a certain rank to maintain, he raised the monthly stipend to five

hundred francs, for which, although he did not again become an angel, he was, at least, a "friend for life," a

From 1820 to 1823, Florentine had the experience of every danseuse of nineteen to twenty years of age. Her

friends were the illustrious Mariette and Tullia, leading ladies of the Opera, Florine, and also poor Coralie,

torn too early from the arts, and love, and Camusot. As old Cardot had by this time acquired five additional

years, he had fallen into the indulgence of a semipaternity, which is the way with old men towards the

young talents they have trained, and which owe their success to them. Besides, where could he have found

another Florentine who knew all his habits and likings, and with whom he and his friends could sing "Mere

Godichon"? So the little old man remained under a yoke that was semiconjugal and also irresistibly strong.

During the five years of silver and gold Pere Cardot had laid by eighty thousand francs. The old gentleman,

wise from experience, foresaw that by the time he was seventy Florentine would be of age, probably engaged

at the Opera, and, consequently, wanting all the luxury of a theatrical star. Some days before the party

mentioned by Georges, Pere Cardot had spent the sum of fortyfive thousand francs in fitting up for his

Florentine the former apartment of the late Coralie. In Paris there are suites of rooms as well as houses and

streets that have their predestinations. Enriched with a magnificent service of plate, the "prima danseuse" of

the Gaiete began to give dinners, spent three hundred francs a month on her dress, never went out except in a

In fact, an engagement at the Opera was already in the wind. The Cocon d'Or did homage to its first master

by sending its most splendid products for the gratification of Mademoiselle Cabirolle, now called Florentine.

The magnificence which suddenly burst upon her apartment in the rue de Vendome would have satisfied the

most ambitious supernumerary. After being the master of the ship for seven years, Cardot now found himself

towed along by a force of unlimited caprice. But the luckless old gentleman was fond of his tyrant. Florentine

was to close his eyes; he meant to leave her a hundred thousand francs. The iron age had now begun.

Georges Marest, with thirty thousand francs a year, and a handsome face, courted Florentine. Every danseuse

makes a point of having some young man who will take her to drive, and arrange the gay excursions into the

country which all such women delight in. However disinterested she may be, the courtship of such a star is a

passion which costs some trifles to the favored mortal. There are dinners at restaurants, boxes at the theatres,

carriages to go to the environs and return, choice wines consumed in profusion,for an opera danseuse eats

and drinks like an athlete. Georges amused himself like other young men who pass at a jump from paternal

discipline to a rich independence, and the death of his uncle, nearly doubling his means, had still further

enlarged his ideas. As long as he had only his patrimony of eighteen thousand francs a year, his intention was

to become a notary, but (as his cousin remarked to the clerks of Desroches) a man must be stupid who begins

a profession with the fortune most men hope to acquire in order to leave it. Wiser then Georges, Frederic

persisted in following the career of public office, and of putting himself, as we have seen, in training for it.

A young man as handsome and attractive as Georges might very well aspire to the hand of a rich creole; and

the clerks in Desroches' office, all of them the sons of poor parents, having never frequented the great world,

or, indeed, known anything about it, put themselves into their best clothes on the following day, impatient

enough to behold, and be presented to the Mexican Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos.

"What luck," said Oscar to Godeschal, as they were getting up in the morning, "that I had just ordered a new

coat and trousers and waistcoat, and that my dear mother had made me that fine outfit! I have six frilled shirts

of fine linen in the dozen she made for me. We shall make an appearance! Ha! ha! suppose one of us were to

"Fine occupation that, for a clerk in our office!" cried Godeschal. "Will you never control your vanity,

"Ah! monsieur," said Madame Clapart, who entered the room at that moment to bring her son some cravats,

and overhead the last words of the headclerk, "would to God that my Oscar might always follow your

advice. It is what I tell him all the time: 'Imitate Monsieur Godeschal; listen to what he tells you.'"

"He'll go all right, madame," interposed Godeschal, "but he mustn't commit any more blunders like one he

was guilty of last night, or he'll lose the confidence of the master. Monsieur Desroches won't stand any one

not succeeding in what he tells them to do. He ordered your son, for a first employment in his new clerkship,

to get a copy of a judgment which ought to have been served last evening, and Oscar, instead of doing so,

allowed himself to be fooled. The master was furious. It's a chance if I have been able to repair the mischief

by going this morning, at six o'clock, to see the headclerk at the Palais, who has promised me to have a copy

"Ah, Godeschal!" cried Oscar, going up to him and pressing his hand. "You are, indeed, a true friend."

"Ah, monsieur!" said Madame Clapart, "a mother is happy, indeed, in knowing that her son has a friend like

you; you may rely upon a gratitude which can end only with my life. Oscar, one thing I want to say to you

now. Distrust that Georges Marest. I wish you had never met him again, for he was the cause of your first

The too devoted mother explained succinctly the adventure of her poor Oscar in Pierrotin's coucou.

"I am certain," said Godeschal, "that that blagueur is preparing some trick against us for this evening. As for

me, I can't go to the Marquise de las Florentinas' party, for my sister wants me to draw up the terms of her

new engagement; I shall have to leave after the dessert. But, Oscar, be on your guard. They will ask you to

play, and, of course, the Desroches office mustn't draw back; but be careful. You shall play for both of us;

here's a hundred francs," said the good fellow, knowing that Oscar's purse was dry from the demands of his

tailor and bootmaker. "Be prudent; remember not to play beyond that sum; and don't let yourself get tipsy,

either with play or libations. Saperlotte! a second clerk is already a man of weight, and shouldn't gamble on

notes, or go beyond a certain limit in anything. His business is to get himself admitted to the bar. Therefore

don't drink too much, don't play too long, and maintain a proper dignity,that's your rule of conduct. Above

all, get home by midnight; for, remember, you must be at the Palais tomorrow morning by seven to get that

"Do you hear that, Oscar?" said Madame Clapart. "Monsieur Godeschal is indulgent; see how well he knows

Madame Clapart, on the arrival of the tailor and the bootmaker with Oscar's new clothes, remained alone with

"Ah, monsieur!" she said, "the blessings of a mother will follow you wherever you go, and in all your

Poor woman! she now had the supreme delight of seeing her son well dressed, and she gave him a gold

watch, the price of which she had saved by economy, as the reward of his good conduct.

"You draw for the conscription next week," she said, "and to prepare, in case you get a bad number, I have

been to see your uncle Cardot. He is very much pleased with you; and so delighted to know you are a second

clerk at twenty, and to hear of your successful examination at the lawschool, that he promised me the money

for a substitute. Are not you glad to think that your own good conduct has brought such reward? Though you

have some privations to bear, remember the happiness of being able, five years from now, to buy a practice.

Oscar's face, somewhat thinned by study, had acquired, through habits of business, a serious expression. He

had reached his full growth, his beard was thriving; adolescence had given place to virility. The mother could

"Amuse yourself, my dear boy, but remember the advice of our good Monsieur Godeschal. Ah! by the bye, I

was nearly forgetting! Here's a present our friend Moreau sends you. See! what a pretty pocketbook."

"And I want it, too; for the master gave me five hundred francs to get that cursed judgment of Vandernesse

"But, surely, you are not going to carry it with you!" exclaimed his mother, in alarm. "Suppose you should

lose a sum like that! Hadn't you better give it to Monsieur Godeschal for safe keeping?"

But Godeschal, who, like all clerks, has his time to himself on Sundays, from ten to two o'clock, had already

When his mother left him, Oscar went to lounge upon the boulevards until it was time to go to Georges

Marest's breakfast. Why not display those beautiful clothes which he wore with a pride and joy which all

young fellows who have been pinched for means in their youth will remember. A pretty waistcoat with a blue

ground and a palmleaf pattern, a pair of black cashmere trousers pleated, a black coat very well fitting, and a

cane with a gilt top, the cost of which he had saved himself, caused a natural joy to the poor lad, who thought

of his manner of dress on the day of that journey to Presles, as the effect that Georges had then produced

Oscar had before him the perspective of a day of happiness; he was to see the gay world at last! Let us admit

that a clerk deprived of enjoyments, though longing for dissipation, was likely to let his unchained senses

drive the wise counsels of his mother and Godeschal completely out of his mind. To the shame of youth let it

be added that good advice is never lacking to it. In the matter of Georges, Oscar himself had a feeling of

aversion for him; he felt humiliated before a witness of that scene in the salon at Presles when Moreau had

flung him at the count's feet. The moral senses have their laws, which are implacable, and we are always

punished for disregarding them. There is one in particular, which the animals themselves obey without

discussion, and invariably; it is that which tells us to avoid those who have once injured us, with or without

intention, voluntarily or involuntarily. The creature from whom we receive either damage or annoyance will

always be displeasing to us. Whatever may be his rank or the degree of affection in which he stands to us, it

is best to break away from him; for our evil genius has sent him to us. Though the Christian sentiment is

opposed to it, obedience to this terrible law is essentially social and conservative. The daughter of James II.,

who seated herself upon her father's throne, must have caused him many a wound before that usurpation.

Judas had certainly given some murderous blow to Jesus before he betrayed him. We have within us an

inward power of sight, an eye of the soul which foresees catastrophes; and the repugnance that comes over us

against the fateful being is the result of that foresight. Though religion orders us to conquer it, distrust

remains, and its voice is forever heard. Would Oscar, at twenty years of age, have the wisdom to listen to it?

Alas! when, at halfpast two o'clock, Oscar entered the salon of the Rocher de Cancale,where were three

invited persons besides the clerks, to wit: an old captain of dragoons, named Giroudeau; Finot, a journalist

who might procure an engagement for Florentine at the Opera, and du Bruel, an author, the friend of Tullia,

one of Mariette's rivals,the second clerk felt his secret hostility vanish at the first handshaking, the first

dashes of conversation as they sat around a table luxuriously served. Georges, moreover, made himself

"You've taken to private diplomacy," he said; "for what difference is there between a lawyer and an

ambassador? only that between a nation and an individual. Ambassadors are the attorneys of Peoples. If I can

"Well," said Oscar, "I'll admit to you now that you once did me a very great harm."

"Pooh!" said Georges, after listening to the explanation for which he asked; "it was Monsieur de Serizy who

behaved badly. His wife! I wouldn't have her at any price; neither would I like to be in the count's red skin,

minister of State and peer of France as he is. He has a small mind, and I don't care a fig for him now."

Oscar listened with true pleasure to these slurs on the count, for they diminished, in a way, the importance of

his fault; and he echoed the spiteful language of the exnotary, who amused himself by predicting the blows

to the nobility of which the bourgeoisie were already dreaming,blows which were destined to become a

At halfpast three the solid eating of the feast began; the dessert did not appear till eight o'clock,each

course having taken two hours to serve. None but clerks can eat like that! The stomachs of eighteen and

twenty are inexplicable to the medical art. The wines were worthy of Borrel, who in those days had

superseded the illustrious Balaine, the creator of the first restaurant for delicate and perfectly prepared food in

The report of this Belshazzar's feast for the architriclinobasochien register was duly drawn up, beginning,

"Inter pocula aurea restauranti, qui vulgo dicitur Rupes Cancali." Every one can imagine the fine page now

Godeschal disappeared after signing the report, leaving the eleven guests, stimulated by the old captain of the

Imperial Guard, to the wines, toasts, and liqueurs of a dessert composed of choice and early fruits, in

pyramids that rivalled the obelisk of Thebes. By halfpast ten the little subclerk was in such a state that

Georges packed him into a coach, paid his fare, and gave the address of his mother to the driver. The

remaining ten, all as drunk as Pitt and Dundas, talked of going on foot along the boulevards, considering the

fine evening, to the house of the Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos, where, about midnight, they might

expect to find the most brilliant society of Paris. They felt the need of breathing the pure air into their lungs;

but, with the exception of Georges, Giroudeau, du Bruel, and Finot, all four accustomed to Parisian orgies,

not one of the party could walk. Consequently, Georges sent to a liverystable for three open carriages, in

which he drove his company for an hour round the exterior boulevards from Monmartre to the Barriere du

Trone. They returned by Bercy, the quays, and the boulevards to the rue de Vendome.

The clerks were fluttering still in the skies of fancy to which youth is lifted by intoxication, when their

amphitryon introduced them into Florentine's salon. There sparkled a bevy of stage princesses, who, having

been informed, no doubt, of Frederic's joke, were amusing themselves by imitating the women of good

society. They were then engaged in eating ices. The waxcandles flamed in the candelabra. Tullia's footmen

and those of Madame du ValNoble and Florine, all in full livery, where serving the dainties on silver

salvers. The hangings, a marvel of Lyonnaise workmanship, fastened by gold cords, dazzled all eyes. The

flowers of the carpet were like a garden. The richest "bibelots" and curiosities danced before the eyes of the

At first, and in the state to which Georges had brought them, the clerks, and more particularly Oscar, believed

in the Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos. Gold glittered on four cardtables in the bedchamber. In the

salon, the women were playing at vingtetun, kept by Nathan, the celebrated author.

After wandering, tipsy and half asleep, through the dark exterior boulevards, the clerks now felt that they had

wakened in the palace of Armida. Oscar, presented to the marquise by Georges, was quite stupefied, and did

not recognize the danseuse he had seen at the Gaiete, in this lady, aristocratically decolletee and swathed in

laces, till she looked like the vignette of a keepsake, who received him with manners and graces the like of

which was neither in the memory nor the imagination of a young clerk rigidly brought up. After admiring the

splendors of the apartment and the beautiful women there displayed, who had all outdone each other in their

dress for this occasion, Oscar was taken by the hand and led by Florentine to a vingtetun table.

"Let me present you," she said, "to the beautiful Marquise d'Anglade, one of my nearest friends."

And she took Oscar to the pretty Fanny Beaupre, who had just made herself a reputation at the

"My dear," said Florentine, "allow me to present to you a charming youth, whom you can take as a partner in

"Ah! that will be delightful," replied the actress, smiling, as she looked at Oscar. "I am losing. Shall we go

"Put down the money; I'll play; you shall being me luck! See, here are my last hundred francs."

And the "marquise" took out from her purse, the rings of which were adorned with diamonds, five gold

pieces. Oscar pulled out his hundred in silver fivefranc pieces, much ashamed at having to mingle such

"Oh! how stupid!" she cried. "I'm banker now. But we'll play together still, won't we?"

Fanny Beaupre rose to take her place as banker, and Oscar, finding himself observed by the whole table,

dared not retire on the ground that he had no money. Speech failed him, and his tongue clove to the roof of

Florentine brought the money, which she obtained from Georges, who had just passed eight times at ecarte.

"Nathan has won twelve hundred francs," said the actress to Oscar. "Bankers always win; we won't let them

Persons of nerve, imagination, and dash will understand how it was that poor Oscar opened his pocketbook

and took out the note of five hundred francs which Desroches had given him. He looked at Nathan, the

distinguished author, who now began, with Florine, to play a heavy game against the bank.

"Come, my little man, take 'em up," cried Fanny Beaupre, signing to Oscar to rake in the two hundred francs

The actress did not spare taunts or jests on those who lost. She enlivened the game with jokes which Oscar

thought singular; but reflection was stifled by joy; for the first two throws produced a gain of two thousand

francs. Oscar then thought of feigning illness and making his escape, leaving his partner behind him; but

"honor" kept him there. Three more turns and the gains were lost. Oscar felt a cold sweat running down his

The next two throws carried off the thousand francs of their mutual stake. Oscar was consumed with thirst,

and drank three glasses of iced punch one after the other. The actress now led him into the bed chamber,

where the rest of the company were playing, talking frivolities with an easy air. But by this time the sense of

his wrong doing overcame him; the figure of Desroches appeared to him like a vision. He turned aside to a

dark corner and sat down, putting his handkerchief to his eyes, and wept. Florentine noticed the attitude of

true grief, which, because it is sincere, is certain to strike the eye of one who acts. She ran to him, took the

handkerchief from his hand, and saw his tears; then she led him into a boudoir alone.

At the tone and accent of that voice Oscar recognized a motherly kindness which is often found in women of

"I have lost five hundred francs which my employer gave me to obtain a document tomorrow morning;

"How silly you are!" she said. "Stay where you are; I'll get you a thousand francs and you can win back what

you've lost; but don't risk more than five hundred, so that you may be sure of your master's money. Georges

Oscar, frightened by his position, accepted the offer of the mistress of the house.

"Ah!" he thought, "it is only women of rank who are capable of such kindness. Beautiful, noble, rich! how

He received the thousand francs from Florentine and returned to bet on his hoaxer. Georges had just passed

for the fourth time when Oscar sat down beside him. The other players saw with satisfaction the arrival of a

new better; for all, with the instinct of gamblers, took the side of Giroudeau, the old officer of the Empire.

"Messieurs," said Georges, "you'll be punished for deserting me; I feel in the vein. Come, Oscar, we'll make

Georges and his partner lost five games running. After losing the thousand francs Oscar was seized with the

fury of play and insisted on taking the cards himself. By the result of a chance not at all uncommon with

those who play for the first time, he won. But Georges bewildered him with advice; told him when to throw

the cards, and even snatched them from his hand; so that this conflict of wills and intuitions injured his vein.

By three o'clock in the morning, after various changes of fortune, and still drinking punch, Oscar came down

to his last hundred francs. He rose with a heavy head, completely stupefied, took a few steps forward, and fell

"Mariette," said Fanny Beaupre to Godeschal's sister, who had come in about two o'clock, "do you dine here

"The devil take him and his orgies!" exclaimed Florentine. "He and Camusot are worse than magistrates or

stagemanagers. But we have very good dinners here, Mariette," she continued. "Cardot always orders them

from Chevet's; bring your Duc de Maufrigneuse and we'll make them dance like Tritons."

Hearing the names of Cardot and Camusot, Oscar made an effort to throw off his sleep; but he could only

mutter a few words which were not understood, and then he fell back upon the silken cushions.

"You'll have to keep him here all night," said Fanny Beaupre, laughing, to Florentine.

"Oh! poor boy! he is drunk with punch and despair both. It is the second clerk in your brother's office," she

said to Mariette. "He has lost the money his master gave him for some legal affair. He wanted to drown

himself; so I lent him a thousand francs, but those brigands Finot and Giroudeau won them from him. Poor

"But we ought to wake him," said Mariette. "My brother won't make light of it, nor his master either."

"Oh, wake him if you can, and carry him off with you!" said Florentine, returning to the salon to receive the

Presently those who remained began what was called "character dancing," and by the time it was broad

daylight, Florentine, tired out, went to bed, oblivious to Oscar, who was still in the boudoir sound asleep.

About eleven the next morning, a terrible sound awoke the unfortunate clerk. Recognizing the voice of his

uncle Cardot, he thought it wise to feign sleep, and so turned his face into the yellow velvet cushions on

"Really, my little Florentine," said the old gentleman, "this is neither right nor sensible; you danced last

evening in 'Les Ruines,' and you have spent the night in an orgy. That's deliberately going to work to lose

your freshness. Besides which, it was ungrateful to inaugurate this beautiful apartment without even letting

"Old monster!" cried Florentine, "haven't you a key that lets you in at all hours? My ball lasted till five in the

"Halfpast eleven, Titine," observed Cardot, humbly. "I came out early to order a dinner fit for an archbishop

at Chevet's. Just see how the carpets are stained! What sort of people did you have here?"

"You needn't complain, for Fanny Beaupre told me you were coming to dinner with Camusot, and to please

you I've invited Tullia, du Bruel, Mariette, the Duc de Maufrigneuse, Florine, and Nathan. So you'll have the

four loveliest creatures ever seen behind the footlights; we'll dance you a 'pas de Zephire.'"

"It is enough to kill you to lead such a life!" cried old Cardot; "and look at the broken glasses! What pillage!

At this instant the wrathful old gentleman stopped short as if magnetized, like a bird which a snake is

charming. He saw the outline of a form in a black coat through the door of the boudoir.

The eyes of the danseuse followed those of the little old man; and when she recognized the presence of the

clerk she went off into such fits of laughter that not only was the old gentleman nonplussed, but Oscar was

compelled to appear; for Florentine took him by the arm, still pealing with laughter at the

"Nephew! so he's your nephew?" cried Florentine, with another burst of laughter. "You never told me about

him. Why didn't Mariette carry you off?" she said to Oscar, who stood there petrified. "What can he do now,

"Whatever he pleases!" said Cardot, sharply, marching to the door as if to go away.

"One moment, papa Cardot. You will be so good as to get your nephew out of a scrape into which I led him;

for he played the money of his master and lost it, and I lend him a thousand francs to win it back, and he lost

"Oh, uncle, uncle!" cried poor Oscar, plunged by these words into all the horrors of his position, and falling

on his knees before his uncle, with clasped hands, "It is twelve o'clock! I am lost, dishonored! Monsieur

Desroches will have no pity! He gave me the money for an important affair, in which his pride was

concerned. I was to get a paper at the Palais in the case of Vandernesse versus Vandernesse! What will

become of me? Oh, save me for the sake of my father and aunt! Come with me to Monsieur Desroches, and

These sentences were jerked out through sobs and tears that might have moved the sphinx of Luxor.

"Old skinflint!" said the danseuse, who was crying, "will you let your own nephew be dishonored,the son

of the man to whom you owe your fortune?for his name is Oscar Husson. Save him, or Titine will deny

"Don't you see that the reason he forgot to go for those papers was because he was drunk and overslept

himself. Georges and his cousin Frederic took all the clerks in his office to a feast at the Rocher de Cancale."

"Come, come," she said, "you old monkey, shouldn't I have hid him better if there had been anything else in

"There, take your five hundred francs, you scamp!" said Cardot to his nephew, "and remember, that's the last

penny you'll ever get from me. Go and make it up with your master if you can. I'll return the thousand francs

which you borrowed of mademoiselle; but I'll never hear another word about you."

Oscar disappeared, not wishing to hear more. Once in the street, however, he knew not where to go.

Chance which destroys men and chance which saves them were both making equal efforts for and against

Oscar during that fateful morning. But he was doomed to fall before a master who forgave no failure in any

affair he had once undertaken. When Mariette reached home that night, she felt alarmed at what might

happen to the youth in whom her brother took interest and she wrote a hasty note to Godeschal, telling him

what had happened to Oscar and inclosing a bank bill for five hundred francs to repair his loss. The

kindhearted creature went to sleep after charging her maid to carry the little note to Desroches' office before

seven o'clock in the morning. Godeschal, on his side, getting up at six and finding that Oscar had not

returned, guessed what had happened. He took the five hundred francs from his own little hoard and rushed to

the Palais, where he obtained a copy of the judgment and returned in time to lay it before Desroches by eight

Meantime Desroches, who always rose at four, was in his office by seven. Mariette's maid, not finding the

brother of her mistress in his bedroom, came down to the office and there met Desroches, to whom she very

Desroches opened the letter and read it. Finding the fivehundred franc note, he went into his private office

furiously angry with his second clerk. About halfpast seven he heard Godeschal dictating to the second

headclerk a copy of the document in question, and a few moments later the good fellow entered his master's

"Then it rains fivehundredfranc notes," cried Desroches. "Look here, Godeschal, you are a fine fellow, but

that little Husson does not deserve such generosity. I hate idiots, but I hate still more the men who will go

wrong in spite of the fatherly care which watches over them." He gave Godeschal Mariette's letter and the

fivehundredfranc note which she had sent. "You must excuse my having opened it," he said, "but your

"Poor unhappy boy! what grief he has caused me! " said Godeschal, "that tall ne'erdowell of a Georges

Marest is his evil genius; he ought to flee him like the plague; if not, he'll bring him to some third disgrace."

"Ah! yes," said the lawyer, "I remember Joseph Bridau told me that story about the time it happened. It is to

that meeting that we owe the favor Monsieur de Serizy has since shown in the matter of Joseph's brother,

At this moment Moreau, to whom the case of the Vandernesse estate was of much importance, entered the

office. The marquis wished to sell the land in parcels and the count was opposed to such a sale. The land

agent received therefore the first fire of Desroches' wrath against his exsecond clerk and all the threatening

prophecies which he fulminated against him. The result was that this most sincere friend and protector of the

"Make him a barrister," said Desroches. "He has only his last examination to pass. In that line, his defects

might prove virtues, for selflove and vanity give tongues to half the attorneys."

At this time Clapart, who was ill, was being nursed by his wife,a painful task, a duty without reward. The

sick man tormented the poor creature, who was now doomed to learn what venomous and spiteful teasing a

halfimbecile man, whom poverty had rendered craftily savage, could be capable of in the weary teteatete

of each endless day. Delighted to turn a sharpened arrow in the sensitive heart of the mother, he had, in a

measure, studied the fears that Oscar's behavior and defects inspired in the poor woman. When a mother

receives from her child a shock like that of the affair at Presles, she continues in a state of constant fear, and,

by the manner in which his wife boasted of Oscar every time he obtained the slightest success, Clapart knew

the extent of her secret uneasiness, and he took pains to rouse it on every occasion.

"Well, Madame," Clapart would say, "Oscar is doing better than I even hoped. That journey to Presles was

only a heedlessness of youth. Where can you find young lads who do not commit just such faults? Poor child!

he bears his privations heroically! If his father had lived, he would never have had any. God grant he may

While all these catastrophes were happening in the rue de Vendome and the rue de Bethisy, Clapart, sitting in

the chimney corner, wrapped in an old dressinggown, watched his wife, who was engaged over the fire in

their bedroom in simultaneously making the family broth, Clapart's "tisane," and her own breakfast.

"Mon Dieu! I wish I knew how the affair of yesterday ended. Oscar was to breakfast at the Rocher de

"Don't trouble yourself! Sooner or later you'll find out about your swan," said her husband. "Do you really

believe in that marquise? Pooh! A young man who has senses and a taste for extravagance like Oscar can find

such ladies as that on every bushif he pays for them. Some fine morning you'll find yourself with a load of

"You are always trying to put me in despair!" cried Madame Clapart. "You complained that my son lived on

your salary, and never has he cost you a penny. For two years you haven't had the slightest cause of

complaint against him; here he is second clerk, his uncle and Monsieur Moreau pay all expenses, and he

earns, himself, a salary of eight hundred francs. If we have bread to eat in our old age we may owe it all to

Just then the bell rang loudly. Madame Clapart ran to open the door, and remained in the outer room with

Moreau, who had come to soften the blow which Oscar's new folly would deal to the heart of his poor

"What! he gambled with the money of the office?" she cried, bursting into tears.

"Didn't I tell you so, hey?" said Clapart, appearing like a spectre at the door of the salon whither his curiosity

"Oh! what shall we do with him?" said Madame Clapart, whose grief made her impervious to Clapart's taunt.

"If he bore my name," replied Moreau, "I should wait composedly till he draws for the conscription, and if he

gets a fatal number I should not provide him with a substitute. This is the second time your son has

committed a folly out of sheer vanity. Well, vanity may inspire fine deeds in war and may advance him in the

career of a soldier. Besides, six years of military service will put some lead into his head; and as he has only

his last legal examination to pass, it won't be much illluck for him if he doesn't become a lawyer till he is

twentysix; that is, if he wants to continue in the law after paying, as they say, his tax of blood. By that time,

at any rate, he will have been severely punished, he will have learned experience, and contracted habits of

subordination. Before making his probation at the bar he will have gone through his probations in life."

"If that is your decision for a son," said Madame Clapart, "I see that the heart of a father is not like that of a

"Would you rather he flung himself headforemost into the Seine after committing a dishonorable action? He

cannot now become a solicitor; do you think him steady and wise enough to be a barrister? No. While his

reason is maturing, what will he become? A dissipated fellow. The discipline of the army will, at least,

"Could he not go into some other office? His uncle Cardot has promised to pay for his substitute; Oscar is to

At this moment carriagewheels were heard, and a hackneycoach containing Oscar and all his worldly

Oscar kissed his mother, and held out to Moreau a hand which the latter refused to take. To this rebuff Oscar

replied by a reproachful look, the boldness of which he had never shown before. Then he turned on Clapart.

"Listen to me, monsieur," said the youth, transformed into a man. "You worry my poor mother devilishly,

and that's your right, for she is, unfortunately, your wife. But as for me, it is another thing. I shall be of age in

a few months; and you have no rights over me even as a minor. I have never asked anything of you. Thanks

to Monsieur Moreau, I have never cost you one penny, and I owe you no gratitude. Therefore, I say, let me

Clapart, hearing this apostrophe, slunk back to his sofa in the chimney corner. The reasoning and the inward

fury of the young man, who had just received a lecture from his friend Godeschal, silenced the imbecile mind

"A momentary temptation, such as you yourself would have yielded to at my age," said Oscar to Moreau,

"has made me commit a fault which Desroches thinks serious, though it is only a peccadillo. I am more

provoked with myself for taking Florentine of the Gaiete for a marquise than I am for losing fifteen hundred

francs after a little debauch in which everybody, even Godeschal, was halfseas over. This time, at any rate,

I've hurt no one by myself. I'm cured of such things forever. If you are willing to help me, Monsieur Moreau,

I swear to you that the six years I must still stay a clerk before I can get a practice shall be spent without"

"Never mind, never mind," said Madame Clapart to her son, casting a reproachful glance at Moreau. "Your

"I have no longer an uncle Cardot," replied Oscar, who related the scene at the rue de Vendome.

Madame Clapart, feeling her legs give way under the weight of her body, staggered to a chair in the

Moreau took the poor mother in his arms, and carried her to the bed in her chamber. Oscar remained

"There is nothing left for you," said Moreau, coming back to him, "but to make yourself a soldier. That idiot

of a Clapart looks to me as though he couldn't live three months, and then your mother will be without a

penny. Ought I not, therefore, to reserve for her the little money I am able to give? It was impossible to tell

you this before her. As a soldier, you'll eat plain bread and reflect on life such as it is to those who are born

"Suppose you do, what then? Your mother has well fulfilled her duty towards you. She gave you an

education; she placed you on the right road, and secured you a career. You have left it. Now, what can you

do? Without money, nothing; as you know by this time. You are not a man who can begin a new career by

taking off your coat and going to work in your shirtsleeves with the tools of an artisan. Besides, your mother

Oscar sat down and no longer restrained his tears, which flowed copiously. At last he understood this

"Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting the profundity of that cruel sentence.

"My fate will soon be decided," said Oscar. "I draw my number the day after tomorrow. Between now and

Moreau, deeply distressed in spite of his stern bearing, left the household in the rue de la Cerisaie to its

Three days later Oscar drew the number twentyseven. In the interests of the poor lad the former steward of

Presles had the courage to go to the Comte de Serizy and ask for his influence to get Oscar into the cavalry. It

happened that the count's son, having left the Ecole Polytechnique rather low in his class, was appointed, as a

favor, sub lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry commanded by the Duc de Maufrigneuse. Oscar had,

therefore, in his great misfortune, the small luck of being, at the Comte de Serizy's instigation, drafted into

that noble regiment, with the promise of promotion to quartermaster within a year. Chance had thus placed

Madame Clapart, after languishing for some days, so keenly was she affected by these catastrophes, became a

victim to the remorse which seizes upon many a mother whose conduct has been frail in her youth, and who,

in her old age, turns to repentance. She now considered herself under a curse. She attributed the sorrows of

her second marriage and the misfortunes of her son to a just retribution by which God was compelling her to

expiate the errors and pleasures of her youth. This opinion soon became a certainty in her mind. The poor

woman went, for the first time in forty years, to confess herself to the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of SaintPaul's,

who led her into the practice of devotion. But so illused and loving a soul as that of Madame Clapart's could

never be anything but simply pious. The Aspasia of the Directory wanted to expiate her sins in order to draw

down the blessing of God on the head of her poor Oscar, and she henceforth vowed herself to works and

deeds of the purest piety. She believed she had won the attention of heaven when she saved the life of

Monsieur Clapart, who, thanks to her devotion, lived on to torture her; but she chose to see, in the tyranny of

that imbecile mind, a trial inflicted by the hand of one who loveth while he chasteneth.

Oscar, meantime, behaved so well that in 1830 he was first sergeant of the company of the Vicomte de

Serizy, which gave him the rank of sub lieutenant of the line. Oscar Husson was by that time twentyfive

years old. As the Royal Guard, to which his regiment was attached, was always in garrison in Paris, or within

a circumference of thirty miles around the capital, he came to see his mother from time to time, and tell her

his griefs; for he had the sense to see that he could never become an officer as matters then were. At that time

the cavalry grades were all being taken up by the younger sons of noble families, and men without the article

to their names found promotion difficult. Oscar's sole ambition was to leave the Guards and be appointed

sub lieutenant in a regiment of the cavalry of the line. In the month of February, 1830, Madame Clapart

obtained this promotion for her son through the influence of Madame la Dauphine, granted to the Abbe

Although Oscar outwardly professed to be devoted to the Bourbons, in the depths of his heart he was a

liberal. Therefore, in the struggle of 1830, he went over to the side of the people. This desertion, which had

an importance due to the crisis in which it took place, brought him before the eyes of the public. During the

excitement of triumph in the month of August he was promoted lieutenant, received the cross of the Legion

of honor, and was attached as aidedecamp to La Fayette, who gave him the rank of captain in 1832. When

the amateur of the best of all possible republics was removed from the command of the National guard, Oscar

Husson, whose devotion to the new dynasty amounted to fanaticism, was appointed major of a regiment sent

to Africa at the time of the first expedition undertaken by the Princeroyal. The Vicomte de Serizy chanced

to be the lieutenantcolonel of this regiment. At the affair of the Makta, where the field had to be abandoned

to the Arabs, Monsieur de Serizy was left wounded under a dead horse. Oscar, discovering this, called out to

He dashed upon the enemy, and his electrified soldiers followed him. The Arabs, in their first astonishment at

this furious and unlooked for return, allowed Oscar to seize the viscount, whom he flung across his horse,

and carried off at full gallop,receiving, as he did so, two slashes from yataghans on his left arm.

Oscar's conduct on this occasion was rewarded with the officer's cross of the Legion of honor, and by his

promotion to the rank of lieutenantcolonel. He took the most affectionate care of the Vicomte de Serizy,

whose mother came to meet him on the arrival of the regiment at Toulon, where, as we know, the young man

The Comtesse de Serizy had not separated her son from the man who had shown him such devotion. Oscar

himself was so seriously wounded that the surgeons whom the countess had brought with her from Paris

Thus the Comte de Serizy was led not only to forgive Oscar for his painful remarks on the journey to Presles,

but to feel himself his debtor on behalf of his son, now buried in the chapel of the chateau de Serizy.

Some years after the affair at Makta, an old lady, dressed in black, leaning on the arm of a man about

thirtyfour years of age, in whom observers would recognize a retired officer, from the loss of an arm and the

rosette of the Legion of honor in his buttonhole, was standing, at eight o'clock, one morning in the month of

May, under the portecochere of the Lion d'Argent, rue de Faubourg SaintDenis, waiting, apparently, for

the departure of a diligence. Undoubtedly Pierrotin, the master of the line of coaches running through the

valley of the Oise (despatching one through SaintLeuTaverny and IsleAdam to Beaumont), would

scarcely have recognized in this bronzed and maimed officer the little Oscar Husson he had formerly taken to

Presles. Madame Husson, at last a widow, was as little recognizable as her son. Clapart, a victim of Fieschi's

machine, had served his wife better by death than by all his previous life. The idle lounger was hanging

about, as usual, on the boulevard du Temple, gazing at the show, when the explosion came. The poor widow

was put upon the pension list, made expressly for the families of the victim, at fifteen hundred francs a year.

The coach, to which were harnessed four irongray horses that would have done honor to the

Messageriesroyales, was divided into three compartments, coupe, interieur, and rotonde, with an imperiale

above. It resembled those diligences called "Gondoles," which now ply, in rivalry with the railroad, between

Paris and Versailles. Both solid and light, wellpainted and wellkept, lined with fine blue cloth, and

furnished with blinds of a Moorish pattern and cushions of red morocco, the "Swallow of the Oise" could

carry, comfortably, nineteen passengers. Pierrotin, now about fiftysix years old, was little changed. Still

dressed in a blue blouse, beneath which he wore a black suit, he smoked his pipe, and superintended the two

"Are your places taken?" he said to Madame Clapart and Oscar, eyeing them like a man who is trying to

"Yes, two places for the interieur in the name of my servant, Bellejambe," replied Oscar; "he must have taken

"Ah! monsieur is the new collector of Beaumont," said Pierrotin. "You take the place of Monsieur

Just then Oscar thrilled at hearing the wellremembered voice of Georges Marest calling out from the street:

"It seems to me you could say 'monsieur' without cracking your throat," replied the master of the line of

Unless by the sound of the voice, Oscar could never have recognized the individual whose jokes had been so

fatal to him. Georges, almost bald, retained only three or four tufts of hair above his ears; but these were

elaborately frizzed out to conceal, as best they could, the nakedness of the skull. A fleshiness illplaced, in

other words, a pearshaped stomach, altered the once elegant proportions of the ex young man. Now almost

ignoble in appearance and bearing, Georges exhibited the traces of disasters in love and a life of debauchery

in his blotched skin and bloated, vinous features. The eyes had lost the brilliancy, the vivacity of youth which

chaste or studious habits have the virtue to retain. Dressed like a man who is careless of his clothes, Georges

wore a pair of shabby trousers, with straps intended for varnished boots; but his were of leather, thicksoled,

ill blacked, and of many months' wear. A faded waistcoat, a cravat, pretentiously tied, although the material

was a wornout foulard, bespoke the secret distress to which a former dandy sometimes falls a prey.

Moreover, Georges appeared at this hour of the morning in an evening coat, instead of a surtout; a sure

diagnostic of actual poverty. This coat, which had seen long service at balls, had now, like its master, passed

from the opulent ease of former times to daily work. The seams of the black cloth showed whitening lines;

the collar was greasy; long usage had frayed the edges of the sleeves into fringes.

And yet, Georges ventured to attract attention by yellow kid gloves, rather dirty, it is true, on the outside of

which a signet ring defined a large dark spot. Round his cravat, which was slipped into a pretentious gold

ring, was a chain of silk, representing hair, which, no doubt, held a watch. His hat, though worn rather

jauntily, revealed, more than any of the above symptoms, the poverty of a man who was totally unable to pay

sixteen francs to a hatmaker, being forced to live from hand to mouth. The former admirer of Florentine

twirled a cane with a chased gold knob, which was horribly battered. The blue trousers, the waistcoat of a

material called "Scotch stuff," a skyblue cravat and a pinkstriped cotton shirt, expressed, in the midst of all

this ruin, such a latent desire to SHOWOFF that the contrast was not only a sight to see, but a lesson to be

"And that is Georges!" said Oscar, in his own mind,"a man I left in possession of thirty thousand francs a

"Has Monsieur DE Pierrotin a place in the coupe?" asked Georges, ironically replying to Pierrotin's rebuff.

"No; my coupe is taken by a peer of France, the soninlaw of Monsieur Moreau, Monsieur le Baron de

Canalis, his wife, and his motherinlaw. I have nothing left but one place in the interieur."

"The devil! so peers of France still travel in your coach, do they?" said Georges, remembering his adventure

He cast a glance of examination on Oscar and his mother, but did not recognize them.

Oscar's skin was now bronzed by the sun of Africa; his moustache was very thick and his whiskers ample; the

hollows in his cheeks and his strongly marked features were in keeping with his military bearing. The rosette

of an officer of the Legion of honor, his missing arm, the strict propriety of his dress, would all have diverted

Georges recollections of his former victim if he had had any. As for Madame Clapart, whom Georges had

scarcely seen, ten years devoted to the exercise of the most severe piety had transformed her. No one would

An enormous old man, very simply dressed, though his clothes were good and substantial, in whom Oscar

recognized Pere Leger, here came slowly and heavily along. He nodded familiarly to Pierrotin, who appeared

"What! you don't recognize Colonel Georges, the friend of Ali pacha? We travelled together once upon a

One of the habitual follies of those who have fallen in the world is to recognize and desire the recognition of

"All things change," said Georges. "Look at the Lion d'Argent and Pierrotin's coach; they are not a bit like

"Pierrotin now controls the whole service of the Valley of the Oise," replied Monsieur Leger, "and sends out

five coaches. He is the bourgeois of Beaumont, where he keeps a hotel, at which all the diligences stop, and

An old man of seventy here came out of the hotel and joined the group of travellers who were waiting to get

"Come along, Papa Reybert," said Leger, "we are only waiting now for your great man."

Neither Georges nor Oscar recognized the illustrious artist, for his face had the worn and haggard lines that

were now famous, and his bearing was that which is given by success. The ribbon of the Legion of honor

adorned his black coat, and the rest of his dress, which was extremely elegant, seemed to denote an

At this moment a clerk, with a paper in his hand, came out of the office (which was now in the former kitchen

"Monsieur and Madame de Canalis, three places," he said. Then, moving to the door of the interieur, he

named, consecutively, "Monsieur Bellejambe, two places; Monsieur de Reybert, three places; Monsieur

The clerk then moved to the rotunde, before which were grouped a number of nurses, countrypeople, and

petty shopkeepers, who were bidding each other adieu. Then, after bundling in the six passengers, he called to

four young men who mounted to the imperial; after which he cried: "Start!" Pierrotin got up beside his driver,

a young man in a blouse, who called out: "Pull!" to his animals, and the vehicle, drawn by four horses

But no sooner had it got above SaintLaurent than it raced like a mailcart to SaintDenis, which it reached

in forty minutes. No stop was made at the cheesecake inn, and the coach took the road through the valley of

It was at the turn into this road that Georges broke the silence which the travellers had so far maintained

"We go a little faster than we did fifteen years ago, hey, Pere Leger?" he said, pulling out a silver watch.

"Persons are usually good enough to call me Monsieur Leger," said the millionaire.

"Why, here's our blagueur of the famous journey to Presles," cried Joseph Bridau. "Have you made any new

"Sacrebleu! I've made the revolution of July, and that's enough for me, for it ruined me."

"Ah! you made the revolution of July!" cried the painter, laughing. "Well, I always said it never made itself."

"How people meet again!" said Monsieur Leger, turning to Monsieur de Reybert. "This, papa Reybert, is the

"We lack Mistigris, now famous under his own name of Leon de Lora," said Joseph Bridau, "and the little

young man who was stupid enough to talk to the count about those skin diseases which are now cured, and

"I'm afraid," said Joseph Bridau, sadly, "that the last journey the count will ever take will be from Presles to

"Once a month," replied Reybert. "She is never happy out of Paris. Last September she married her niece,

Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom, since the death of her son, she spends all her affection, to a very rich

"To his wife, who will bury him," replied Georges. "The countess is still finelooking for a woman of

fiftyfour years of age. She is very elegant, and, at a little distance, gives one the illusion"

"She will always be an illusion to you," said Leger, who seemed inclined to revenge himself on his former

"I respect her," said Georges. "But, by the bye, what became of that steward whom the count turned off?"

"Yes," returned Leger, "Moreau de l'Oise. He did more than you for the revolution of July, and he has since

"Don't speak so loud," said Monsieur de Reybert, "for Madame Moreau and her daughter, the Baronne de

"What 'dot' could he have given his daughter to induce our great orator to marry her?" said Georges.

"He always had a taste for millions," remarked Georges. "He began his pile surreptitiously at Presles"

"Say nothing against Monsieur Moreau," cried Oscar, hastily. "You ought to have learned before now to hold

Joseph Bridau looked at the onearmed officer for several seconds; then he said, smiling:

"Monsieur is not an ambassador, but his rosette tells us he has made his way nobly; my brother and General

"Oscar Husson!" cried Georges. "Faith! if it hadn't been for your voice I should never have known you."

"Ah! it was monsieur who so bravely rescued the Vicomte Jules de Serizy from the Arabs?" said Reybert,

"and for whom the count has obtained the collectorship of Beaumont while awaiting that of Pontoise?"

"I hope you will give me the pleasure, monsieur," said the great painter, "of being present at my marriage at

"Mademoiselle Leger," replied Joseph Bridau, "the granddaughter of Monsieur de Reybert. Monsieur le

comte was kind enough to arrange the marriage for me. As an artist I owe him a great deal, and he wished,

"Ah!" said Georges, assuming a more respectful manner toward Monsieur Leger, "I am fortunate in having

chosen this particular day to do the valley of the Oise. You can all be useful to me, gentlemen."

"In this way," replied Georges. "I am employed by the 'Esperance,' a company just formed, the statutes of

which have been approved by an ordinance of the King. This institution gives, at the end of ten years,

dowries to young girls, annuities to old men; it pays the education of children, and takes charge, in short, of

"I can well believe it," said Pere Leger, smiling. "In a word, you are a runner for an insurance company."

"No, monsieur. I am the inspectorgeneral; charged with the duty of establishing correspondents and

appointing the agents of the company throughout France. I am only operating until the agents are selected; for

"Then you must have shared in some brilliant action," remarked Oscar, with a sarcasm not unmixed with

By this time they had arrived at SaintLeuTaverny, where all the passengers got out while the coach

changed horses. Oscar admired the liveliness which Pierrotin displayed in unhooking the traces from the

"Poor Pierrotin," thought he; "he has stuck like me,not far advanced in the world. Georges has fallen low.

All the others, thanks to speculation and to talent, have made their fortune. Do we breakfast here, Pierrotin?"

"Come, don't be vexed with an old acquaintance," said Oscar, motioning to his mother, but still retaining his

It was all the nobler of Oscar to present his mother to Pierrotin, because, at that moment, Madame Moreau de

l'Oise, getting out of the coupe, overheard the name, and stared disdainfully at Oscar and his mother.

"My faith! madame," said Pierrotin, "I should never have known you; nor you, either, monsieur; the sun

The species of pity which Oscar thus felt for Pierrotin was the last blunder that vanity ever led our hero to

Two months after his official installation at BeaumontsurOise, Oscar was paying his addresses to

Mademoiselle Georgette Pierrotin, whose 'dot' amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he

married the pretty daughter of the proprietor of the stagecoaches of the Oise, toward the close of the winter

The adventure of the journey to Presles was a lesson to Oscar Husson in discretion; his disaster at Florentine's

cardparty strengthened him in honesty and uprightness; the hardships of his military career taught him to

understand the social hierarchy and to yield obedience to his lot. Becoming wise and capable, he was happy.

The Comte de Serizy, before his death, obtained for him the collectorship at Pontoise. The influence of

Monsieur Moreau de l'Oise and that of the Comtesse de Serizy and the Baron de Canalis secured, in after

years, a receivergeneralship for Monsieur Husson, in whom the Camusot family now recognize a relation.

Oscar is a commonplace man, gentle, without assumption, modest, and always keeping, like his government,

to a middle course. He excites neither envy nor contempt. In short, he is the modern bourgeois.

Beaupre, Fanny Modest Mignon The Muse of the Department Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Bridau, Joseph The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Modeste Mignon

Another Study of Woman Pierre Grassou Letters of Two Brides Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis

Bruel, Jean Francois du A Bachelor's Establishment The Government Clerks A Prince of Bohemia The

Cabirolle, AgatheFlorentine Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment

Canalis, ConstantCyrMelchior, Baron de Letters of Two Brides A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Modeste Mignon The Magic Skin Another Study of Woman Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists The

Cardot, JeanJeromeSeverin Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment

Coralie, Mademoiselle A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment

Crottat, Alexandre Cesar Birotteau Colonel Chabert A Woman of Thirty Cousin Pons

Derville Gobseck The Gondreville Mystery Father Goriot Colonel Chabert Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Desroches (son) A Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert A Woman of Thirty The Commission in

Lunacy The Government Clerks A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Firm

Finot, Andoche Cesar Birotteau A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from

a Courtesan's Life The Government Clerks Gaudissart the Great The Firm of Nucingen

Godeschal, FrancoisClaudeMarie Colonel Chabert A Bachelor's Establishment The Commission in

Godeschal, Marie A Bachelor's Establishment Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Cousin Pons

Gondreville, Malin, Comte de The Gondreville Mystery Domestic Peace The Member for Arcis

Grindot Cesar Birotteau Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Lora, Leon de The Unconscious Humorists A Bachelor's Establishment Pierre Grassou Honorine Cousin

Maufrigneuse, Duc de The Secrets of a Princess A Bachelor's Establishment Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Poiret, the elder The Government Clerks Father Goriot Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Middle Classes

Schinner, Hippolyte The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment Pierre Grassou Albert Savarus The Government

Serizy, Comte Hugret de A Bachelor's Establishment Honorine Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's

Serizy, Comtesse de The Thirteen Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Vandenesse, Comte Felix de The Lily of the Valley Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Cesar

Birotteau Letters of Two Brides The Marriage Settlement The Secrets of a Princess Another Study of Woman