CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 John Weiss 
 
 UNDERGRADUATE 
 
PQ2169.rTiE5'i9m"'''^''"''' 
 * '?iNr«m,?,?^*^'"'*'""*"* : Honorine /in 
 
 3 1924 006 845 063 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006845063 
 
^. 
 
 L 45:iZ LCRAU: 
 
 S • t»i U f ! " i> 
 
L'Abb^ Loraux 
 
 — Honorine, page 306 
 
THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC 
 
 A BACHELOR'S 
 ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 HONORINE 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 W. P. TRENT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FRED DeFAU & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 URIS LIBRARY 
 
This Edition limited to i,ooo copies 
 No i.^..... 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . . . \^ 
 
 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISH- 
 MENT . . I 
 
 (Part III. of ''The Celibates.") 
 
 HONORINE, 299 
 
INTRODUCTION* 
 
 [Un Menage de Gargon appeared, in part, under the title 
 of "Les Deux Preres" in La Presse, February 24 to March 4, 
 1841, also in two volumes in 1843. The second part, which 
 deals with the events at Issoudun, and is not marked off in the 
 book as it stands, appeared under the title "Un Menage de 
 Gargon en Province" in La Presse, October 37 to Novem- 
 ber 19, 1843, and also in the two volumes mentioned above. 
 The two parts were divided into nine and sixteen chapters re- 
 spectively — since suppressed. In 1843, under the title of the 
 second part, the novel entered the "Scenes de la Vie de Pro- 
 vince" of the "Comedy," forming Part III. of the "Celiba- 
 taires." In the definitive edition Balzac changed the title to 
 "La Eabouilleuse." Of the two brothers, Joseph, who is said to 
 represent the painter Eugene Delacroix, appears frequently in 
 the "Comedy," Philippe scarcely outside this novel. Many 
 of the companions of both figure in other stories, but the chief 
 personages of the book, such as Flore Brazier, Mme. Des- 
 coings, the Hochons, and Mme. Bridau, play no further parts. 
 Desroches, the notary, and Bixiou, the caricaturist, will be en- 
 countered frequently. 
 
 Eonorine appeared, in six chapters, in La Presse, March 
 17 to 39, 1843. In 1844 it was printed, in two volumes, along 
 with "Un Prince de la Boheme." In this form it had forty 
 short chapters, since suppressed. In 1845 it entered the 
 "Scenes de la Vie Priv6e" of the "Comedy." The Count de 
 Bauvan reappears in the "Splendeurs et Miseres." Mile, des 
 Touches and her companions, Leon de Lora, the painter ("Un 
 Debut dans la Vie"), and Claude Vignon, the critic, are im- 
 
 ♦ Copyriglit, 1900, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 
 
 (ix) (Voi.vm) 
 
X iNTKODUCTlOlSr 
 
 portant personages in the "Comedy" — for the last named see 
 especially "Beatrix," and "La Cousine _rtte."] 
 
 "La Eabouilleuse" — to give the novel its final and better 
 name* — ^is generallyregarded as one of Balzac's greatest works. 
 Along with "Les Paysans," "Cousin Pons," and "Cousine 
 Bette," it serves to prove that even if the second decade of 
 his maturity was less prolific of masterpieces than the first, he 
 needed fear comparison with no novelist save himself. In- 
 deed, it might fairly he held that this novel and "Cousine 
 Bette" show that in the domain of the horrible Balzac was 
 growing in power at the very time that he was declining in 
 physical vitality. The "Human Comedy" contains probably 
 no other incarnate demons comparable in sheer force to 
 Philippe Bridau of the former and Valerie Marneffe ,of the 
 latter novel. To match them one goes back instinctiv.ily to 
 lago and Clytemnestra. 
 
 Balzac has been censured, however, for the way in which he 
 has developed Philippe's character. It is claimed that the 
 latter is at first represented as a mere ne'er-do-well, then 
 somewhat inconsistently as a consummately shrewd villain. 
 But is Balzac's psychology at fault? Philippe showed con- 
 siderable ability as a young soldier, and if he had continued in 
 that calling he might have won honorably the death in battle 
 which we are rather sorry Balzac finally reserved for him. 
 After losing his congenial occupation, he develops his bad 
 qualities in dissipation, being assisted, horribly enough, by the 
 foolish love of his mother, who, good as she is, cannot perceive 
 that the artist Joseph should be her Benjamin. But he does 
 not dull his wits while he is indurating his heart. He shows 
 shrewdness as a gamester, and evidently understands how far 
 he can go with his doting relatives. He displays distinct 
 
 •This curious word is used, as Balzac tells us, of a woman who stirs up the waters 
 of a brook in order to catch crawfish. Flore Brazier stirs up most successfully 
 the quiet waters of Eouget's establishment. 
 
 (Vol. vni) 
 
 
miRODUCTION xi 
 
 ability in managing to make his position secure in connection 
 with the conspiracy, and there is a good reason for his rousing 
 himself to fight for the jeopardized inheritance. He has 
 been in a hospital and a prison, and has been made to learn 
 the worse of the two lessons that adversity has to teach. When 
 he reaches Issoudun, he obtains a valuable assistant in that 
 second edition of old Grandet, M. Hochon, and he has to con- 
 tend with an idiot, a country harlot, and a provincial bravo. 
 He lays his plans skilfully, wins by a combination of brute 
 force and strategy, and once in control of the coveted wealth 
 gives his selfish nature free play. It is a horrible character 
 and career that Balzac has drawn for us, but it seems hardly 
 fair to charge him with inconsistency or undue exaggeration. 
 
 Plore Brazier and Maxence Gilet are set before us with 
 great skill, but do not dominate our imaginations as Philippe 
 does. They are not meant to, for both in cunning and in sang- 
 froid the Parisian naturally surpasses the provincial. E'either 
 Max nor his accomplice is a complete incarnation of evil, 
 but Philippe is. As for the cretin Eouget, he is a fit forerun- 
 ner of the Hulot of "Cousine Bette," but the part he plays in 
 his bachelor capacity is not important enough to make the 
 novel properly fit into the "Celibataires" series. Joseph Bri- 
 dau is, of course, a foil to Philippe, but he does not belong to 
 the gallery of Balzac's great portraits. Mme. Descoings, with 
 her mania for the lottery, is, on the other hand, one of the 
 best minor characters the master has given us, and the notary 
 Desroehes and the parasite Giroudeau are very well drawn. 
 
 It is needless to say that the action of the story is well man- 
 aged, but it is worth noting that the scene is almost as much 
 Parisian as provincial— which is but another commentary on 
 Balzac's system of grouping. Certain individual scenes stand 
 out in bold relief, such as the terrible discovery by Mme. 
 Bridau that the son whom she was trying to shield from con- 
 viction of one theft had committed another upon her. The 
 
 (Vol. vni) 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 description of Issoudun is good, especially with regard to the 
 jealousy of the provincials toward the Parisians, but this is 
 no more than we have learned to expect from Balzac. Here 
 and there his prejudices, whether against democracy or to- 
 bacco, or what not, crop out, but these his admirers take 
 as matters of little moment. One can make many allowances 
 for the man who has described M. Hochon cutting Joseph an- 
 other slice of bread and Philippe refusing to go to see his 
 dying mother. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that "La Rabouilleuse" is a very 
 powerful novel worthy of Balzac at his best. Like "Cousine 
 Bette," however, it gives occasion for the criticism that our 
 author succeeds best with his bad characters. Mme. Bridau, 
 Mme. Hochon, who is in some respects a second Mme. 
 Grandet, and Joseph, in spite of his goodness and genius, do 
 not furnish the element of nobility that is needed to counter- 
 act the double-dyed villainy of Philippe, the coarse brutality 
 of Flore and her paramour, the doting idiocy of old Eouget, 
 the vile cynicism of his father, the Doctor, and the avarice of 
 M. Hochon. The Parisian scenes are on the whole sordid: 
 those at Issoudun are of absorbing interest, in the main, but 
 do not leave one the better for having witnessed them. In- 
 deed the horse-play of the "Chevaliers" almost verges on the 
 contemptible. In other words, Balzac's novel has its lago but 
 lacks its Desdemona. Still sheer power is in itself so wonder- 
 ful as to be almost if not altogether admirable, and sheer 
 power "ILa Eabouilleuse" displays in a most marked degree. 
 Sensitive readers will perhaps not care greatly for it, but 
 then such readers could never be brought to appreciate 
 Balzac in his entirety. 
 
 "Honorine" is hardly a fitting pendant for 'TLa Rabouil- 
 leuse," but it must be remembered that Balzac is not responsi- 
 ble for the sequence. Most English and American readers will 
 doubt whether its tone is wholesome, and will agree with Mile. 
 
 (Vol. vm) 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 des Touches, who, as the representative of George Sand, ought 
 to know about such matters, that the character of the heroine 
 is exceptional, and fortunately so. The Count Octave is ex- 
 ceptional also, but perhaps, as we get juster conceptions of the 
 responsibilities of men in sexual matters, he will receive more 
 sympathy from readers. At least it is fair to say that we owe 
 to his creator, Balzac, some very subtle pages upon a delicate 
 subject of much importance to the present generation — ^the 
 problem of divorce. 
 
 W. P. Trent. 
 
 (Vol. vni) 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 To Monsieur Charles Nodier, 
 
 Member of the French Academy, 
 
 Chief Librarian at the Arsenal. 
 
 Here, my dear Nodier, you have a book full of those incidents 
 which escape the action of the law under the shelter of domestic 
 privacy; but in which the finger of God, so often called Chance, 
 takes the place of human justice, while the moral is not the less 
 striking and instructive for being uttered by a satirist. The out- 
 come, to my mind, is a great lesson for the Family, and for 
 Motherhood. We shall perhaps discover too late the effects of 
 diminished paternal power. That authority, which formerly 
 ceased only on the father's death, constituted the one human 
 tribunal at which domestic crimes could be tried, and on great 
 occasions the Sovereign would ratify and carry out its decisions. 
 However tender and kind the mother may be, she can no more 
 supply that patriarchal rule than a woman can fill a man's place 
 on the throne; when the exception occurs, the creature is a 
 monster. 
 
 I have never, perhaps, drawn a picture which shows more 
 clearly than this how indispensable the stability of marriage is 
 to European Society, what the sorrows are of woman's weak- 
 ness, what dangers are involved in unbridled self-interest. It is 
 to be hoped that a society based solely on the power of money 
 may tremble when it sees the impotence of Justice over the com- 
 plications of a system which deifies success and condones every 
 means to achieve it: That it may have prompt recourse to the 
 
 (1) 
 
2 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Catholic Church for purification of the masses by religious feel- 
 ing, and by some education other than that of a lay University! 
 Enough fine characters, enough instances of great and noble 
 devotion will have been seen in my Scenes of Military Life; so I 
 may be allowed here to show what depravity results from the 
 exigencies of war in certain minds which dare to act in private 
 life as they would on the field of battle. 
 
 You have studied our times with a sagacious eye, and your 
 philosophy betrays itself by more than one bitter reflection in the 
 course of your elegant pages; you, better than any one, have 
 appreciated the mischief done to the spirit of our nation by four 
 different political systems. 
 
 I could not, therefore, place this narrative under the protection 
 of a more competent authority. Your name, perhaps, may 
 defend this work against the outcry it is sure to raise. Where Is 
 there a sufferer who lieeps silence when the surgeon uncovers 
 his most burning wounds ? The pleasure of dedicating this drama 
 to you is enhanced by my pride in betraying your goodwill for 
 him who here signs himself one of your sincere admirers, 
 
 Db Balzac. 
 
 In 1792 the citizens of Issoudun rejoiced in a doctor named 
 Eouget, who was regarded as a very deep fox. Some bold 
 folks asserted that he made his wife very unhappy, though 
 she was the handsomest woman in the town. Perhaps this 
 wife was rather a simpleton. In spite of the inquisitiveness 
 of friends, the gossip of outsiders, and the evil-speaking of 
 the envious, the circumstances of the household were little 
 known. Doctor Eouget was one of the men of whom it is 
 commonly said that "they are not easy to get on with." And 
 so, as long as he lived, little was said about him, and he was 
 treated civilly. 
 
 His wife, a Demoiselle Descoings, somewhat sickly as a 
 girl — one reason, it was said, why the doctor married her — 
 had first a son, and then a daughter, born as it happened ten 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 3 
 
 years after her brother, and not expected by the doctor, it was 
 always reported, though he was a medical man. This late- 
 born daughter was named Agathe. 
 
 These facts are so simple and commonplace that the histo- 
 rian hardly seems justified in placing them in the forefront 
 of his narrative; but if they remained unknown, a man of 
 Doctor Eouget's temper would be condemned as a monster, 
 as an unnatural father, whereas he simply obeyed certain 
 evil promptings which many persons defend under the terrible 
 axiom: A man must know his own mind. This masculine 
 motto has wrought misery for many wives. The Descoings, 
 the doctor's father and mother-in-law, wool-brokers, under- 
 took alike the sale for landowners, or the purchase for wool- 
 merchants of the golden fleeces of le Berry, and took com- 
 mission from both parties. They grew rich over this busi- 
 ness, and then avaricious — the moral of many lives. 
 
 Their son, Descoings junior, a younger brother of Madame 
 Eouget's, did not like Issoudun. He went to seek his fortune 
 in Paris, and set up as a grocer in the Eue Saint-Honore. 
 This was his ruin. But what is to be said? A grocer is at- 
 tracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the re- 
 pulsion which renders it odious to artists. The social forces 
 which make for this or that vocation have been insufficiently 
 studied. It would be curious to know what leads a man to 
 become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer 
 compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's 
 craft. Love had helped to form Descoings' vocation. He 
 had said to himself, "And I, too, will be a grocer !" when he 
 had also said something else on seeing his master's wife, a 
 beautiful creature, with whom he fell over head and ears in 
 love. With no auxiliary but patience and a little money sent 
 him by his father and mother, he married the widow of the 
 worthy Master Bixiou, his predecessor. In 1793 Descoings 
 was regarded as a prosperous man. 
 
 At that time the parents Descoings were still living. They 
 had retired from wool, and invested their wealth in buying 
 government stock — another Golden Fleece. Their son-in- 
 
4 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 law, almost sure ere long to be in mourning for his wife, sent 
 his daughter to his brother-in-law's house in Paris, partly 
 that she might see the capital, but also with a crafty purpose. 
 Descoings had no children. Madame Descoings, twelve years 
 older than her husband, was in excellent health, but she was 
 as fat as a thrush after the vintage ; and the wily Eouget had 
 enough medical skill to foresee that Monsieur and Madame 
 Descoings, in contradiction to the philosophy of fairy-tales, 
 would live happy and have no children. The couple might 
 become devoted to Agathe. Now Doctor Eouget wanted to 
 disinherit his daughter, and flattered himself it might be done 
 if he transplanted her from home. 
 
 This young person, at that time the handsomest girl in 
 Issoudun, was not in the least like either her father or her 
 mother. Her birth had been the occasion of a mortal feud 
 between Doctor Eouget and his intimate friend. Monsieur 
 Lousteau, formerly a sub-delegate, who had just left Issoudun. 
 When a family migrates, the natives of a place so delightful 
 as Issoudun have a right to inquire into the reasons of so un- 
 heard-of a step. To believe some sharp tongues. Monsieur 
 Eouget, a vindictive man, had sworn that Lousteau should die 
 by his hand alone. From a doctor the speech seemed as deadly 
 as a cannon-ball. When the National Assembly abolished 
 delegates, Lousteau left, and never returned to Issoudun. 
 After the removal of this family, Madame Eouget spent all 
 her days with Madame Hoehon, the ex-sub-delegate's sister, 
 her daughter's godmother, and the only person to whom she 
 confided her woes. And what little the citizens of Issoudun 
 ever knew about the beautiful Madame Eouget was told by 
 this good soul, and not till after the doctor's death. 
 
 The first thing Madame Eouget said when her husband 
 spoke of sending Agathe to Paris was, "I shall never see my 
 child again!" — "And she was sadly right," worthy Madame 
 Hoehon would add. 
 
 The poor mother then became as yellow as a quince, and her 
 condition by no means gave the lie to those who declared that 
 Eouget was killing her by inches. The ways of her gawky 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 5 
 
 ninny of a son must have contributed to the griefs of the un- 
 justly accused mother. Kever checked, or perhaps egged on 
 by his father, the lad, who was altogether stupid, showed his 
 mother none of the attention nor the respect due from a son. 
 Jean- Jacques Eouget was like his father, but even worse ; and 
 the doctor was not very admirable, either morally or physi- 
 cally. 
 
 The advent of charming Agathe Eouget brought no good 
 to her uncle Descoings. In the course of the week — or rather 
 of the decade, for the Eepublic had been proclaimed — ^he was 
 imprisoned on a hint from Eobespierre to Fouquier-Tinville. 
 Descoings, being rash enough to opine that the famine was un- 
 real, was fool enough to communicate his opinion — he imag- 
 ined that thought was free — to several of his customers, male 
 and female, as he served them over the counter. Citoyenne 
 Duplay, the wife of the carpenter with whom Eobespierre 
 lodged, and herself the Grand Giioyen's housekeeper, un- 
 happily for Descoings, honored his shop with her custom. 
 This citoyenne considered the grocer's views as an insult to 
 Maximilian the First. Ill pleased as she was by the manners 
 of the Descoings couple, this illustrious tricoteuse of the Jac- 
 obin Club regarded Citoyenne Descoings' beauty as a kind of 
 aristocracy. She added venom to their language while repeat- 
 ing it to her benevolent and kind-hearted master. The grocer 
 was arrested on the usual charge of "monopolizing." 
 
 Descoings in prison, his wife made a stir to obtain his re- 
 lease ; but her efforts were so ill judged that any observer hear- 
 ing her appeal to the arbiters of his fate might have supposed 
 that all she asked was a decent way of getting rid of him. 
 Madame Descoings knew Bridau, one of the secretaries under 
 Eoland, Minister of the Interior, and the right-hand man of 
 all who succeeded to that office. She brought Bridau into the 
 field to save the grocer. This really incorruptible minister, one 
 of those virtuous dupes who are always so admirably disinter- 
 ested, took good care not to tamper with the men on whom 
 Descoings' fate depended; he tried to explain! Now, to ex- 
 plain to the men of that time had about as much effect as 
 
6 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 though they had been asked to restore the Bourbons. The 
 Girondin Minister, at that time combating Eobespierre, said 
 to Bridau, "What business is it of yours ?" And each man to 
 whom the worthy secretary applied made the same ruthless 
 reply, "What business is it of yours ?" 
 
 Bridau very prudently advised Madame Deseoings to keep 
 quiet; but she, instead of conciliating Robespierre's house- 
 keeper, spouted fire and flame against the informer ; she went 
 to see a member of the Convention, who was in fear for him- 
 self, and who said, "I will speak of it to Eobespierre." 
 
 On this promise the grocer's wife rested, and her protector 
 naturally did not speak. A few sugar-loaves, a few bottles of 
 good liqueur offered to Citoyenne Duplay would have saved 
 Deseoings. 
 
 This little incident shows that in a revolution it is as dan- 
 gerous to trust for safety to an honest man as to a scoundrel ; 
 one can rely only on one's self. 
 
 Though Deseoings died, he had the honor, at any rate, of 
 going to the scaffold with Andre de Chenier. There, no doubt, 
 grocery and poetry embraced for the first time in the flesh; 
 for they have always had, and will always have, their private 
 relations. Deseoings' execution made a far greater sensation 
 than Andre de Chenier's. Thirty years elapsed before it was 
 recognized that France had lost more by Chenier's death than 
 by that of Deseoings. 
 
 Eobespierre's sentence had this good result — ^until 1830 
 grocers were still afraid of meddling in politics. 
 
 Deseoings' shop was not more than a hundred yards from 
 Eobespierre's lodgings. The grocer's successor failed in busi- 
 ness ; Cesar Birotteau, the famous perfumer, established him- 
 self in the house. But, as if the scaffold had infected the 
 place with disaster, the inventor of the Compound Sultana 
 Paste and Eau Carminative was also ruined. The solution 
 of this problem is a matter for occult science. 
 
 In the course of the few visits paid by the head-clerk to the 
 luckless Deseoings' wife, he was struck by the calm, cold, 
 artless beauty of Agathe Eouget. When he called to console 
 the widow, who was so far inconsolable as to retire from the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT T 
 
 business after her second bereavement, he ended by marrying 
 the lovely girl in the course of a "decade/' as soon as her 
 father could arrive, and he did not keep them waiting. The 
 doctor, delighted at seeing things turn out even better than he 
 had hoped, since his wife was the sole heiress of the Descoings, 
 flew to Paris, not so much to be present at Agathe's marriage 
 as to see that the settlements were drawn to his mind. Citizen 
 Bridau, quite disinterested, and desperately in love, left this 
 matter entirely to the perfidious doctor, who took full advan- 
 tage of his son-in-law's infatuation, as will be seen in the 
 course of this history. 
 
 Madame Eouget, or, more accurately, the doctor, inherited 
 all the estate, real and personal, of old Monsieur and Madame 
 Descoings, who died within two years of each other. Finally, 
 Eouget got the better of his wife, for she died early in 1799. 
 And he had vineyards, and he bought farmland, and he ac- 
 quired iron-works, and he sold wool ! — His beloved son could 
 never do anything; he intended that the boy should be a 
 landed proprietor, and allowed him to grow up in wealth and 
 folly, confident that he would know as much as the most 
 learned of them all in so far as that he would live and die 
 like other folks. 
 
 Prom the year 1799, the calculating heads of Issoudun said 
 that old Eouget had thirty thousand francs a year. After his 
 wife's death the doctor still led a dissolute life, but with more 
 method, so to speak, and in the privacy of home-life. 
 
 The doctor, a man of strong will, died in 1805. God knows 
 what the good people of Issoudun had then to tell of the 
 man's doings, and what stories were current of his horrible 
 private life. Jean-Jacques Eouget, whom his father had of 
 late kept tightly in hand, having discerned him to be a fool, 
 remained unmarried for sufficient reasons, of which the ex- 
 planation will form an important part of this story. His 
 celibacy was in part the doctor's fault, as will be seen later. 
 
 It is now necessary to consider the results of the vengeance 
 visited by the father on the daughter, whom he did not recog- 
 
8 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 nize as his, though you may take it for certain that she was his 
 legitimate offspring. Nobody at Issoudun had observed one 
 of those singular coincidences which make heredity a sort of 
 maze in which science loses herself. Agathe was very like 
 Doctor Eouget's mother. Just as gout is commonly observed 
 to skip a generation, and to be transmitted from grandfather 
 to grandson, so, not unfrequently, a likeness does the same 
 as the gout. 
 
 Thus Agathe's eldest child, who was like his mother, in 
 character resembled his grandfather. Doctor Eouget. We 
 will leave the solution of this problem also to the twentieth 
 century, with that of the nomenclature of microscopic organ- 
 isms, and our grandchildren will perhaps write as much more 
 nonsense as our learned Societies have already produced on 
 this obscure question. 
 
 Agathe Eouget, was universally admired for one of those 
 faces which, like that of Mary, the mother of the Lord, are 
 for ever virginal, even after marriage. Her portrait, still 
 hanging in Bridau's studio, shows a perfectly oval face, spot- 
 lessly fair, without even a freckle, notwithstanding her golden 
 hair. More than one artist, seeing the pure brow, the deli- 
 cate nose, the shapely ear, the long lashes to eyes of the deepest 
 blue, and infinitely mild — a face, in short, that is the embodi- 
 ment of placidity — asks the great painter to this day, "Is that 
 copied from one of Eaphael's heads ?" 
 
 No man ever made a better choice than did the Eepublican 
 official when he married this girl. Agathe was the ideal house- 
 wife, trained by a country life, and never parted from her 
 mother. She was pious without bigotry, and had no learning 
 but such as the Church allows to women. And she was a per- 
 fect wife in the vulgar sense of the word; indeed, her ig- 
 norance of life involved her in more than one misfortune. 
 The epitaph on the Eoman matron, "She wrought needlework, 
 and kept the house," is an excellent account of her pure, 
 simple, and quiet life. 
 
 At the time of the Consulate, Bridau attached himself 
 fanatically to Napoleon, who made him head of a department 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 9 
 
 of state in 1804, a year before Eouget's death. Eich with a 
 salary of twelve thousand francs and very handsome presents, 
 Bridau eared not at all for the disgraceful proceedings by 
 which the estate was wound up at Issoudun, and Agathe got 
 nothing. Six months before his death old Eouget had sold 
 part of his estate to his son, to whom he secured the remainder, 
 in part by deed of gift, and in part as his direct heir. An ad- 
 vance on her prospective inheritance of a hundred thousand 
 francs secured under her marriage settlement represented 
 Agathe's share of her father's and mother's fortune. 
 
 Bridau idolized the Emperor. He devoted himself with the 
 zeal of a fanatic to carrying out the vast conceptions of this 
 modern demi-god, who, finding everything in France in ruins, 
 set to work to reconstruct everything. His subordinate never 
 said, "Stay, enough." Schemes, drafts, reports, precis, he 
 undertook the heaviest burdens, so happy was he to assist the 
 Emperor. He loved him as a man, he adored him as a 
 sovereign, and would never endure the slightest criticism of 
 his deeds or his schemes. 
 
 Prom 1804 to 1808 the official resided in a large and hand- 
 some apartment on the Quai Voltaire, close to his ofiice and the 
 Tuileries. A cook and a man-servant composed the establish- 
 ment in the days of Madame Bridau's splendor. Agathe, 
 always up the first, went to market, followed by her cook; 
 while the man did the rooms she superintended the break- 
 fast. Bridau never went to the office before eleven o'clock. 
 As long as they both lived his wife found every day the same 
 pleasure in preparing for him a perfect breakfast, the only 
 meal he ate with enjoyment. All the year round, whatever the 
 weather might be, Agathe watched her husband from the 
 window on his way to the office, and never drew her head in 
 till he disappeared round the comer of the Eue du Bac. She 
 cleared the table herself, and looked round the rooms; then 
 she dressed and played with the children, or took them 
 for a walk, or received visitors till her husband returned. 
 When the head-clerk brought home pressing work she would 
 sit by his table in his study, as mute as a statue, and knitting 
 
10 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 as she watched him at work, sitting up as long as he did, and 
 going to bed a few minutes before he went. 
 
 Sometimes they went to the play, sitting in the official box. 
 On such occasions the pair dined at a restaurant; and the 
 scene it presented always afforded Madame Bridau the keen 
 delight it gives to persons unfamiliar with Paris. Compelled, 
 not unfrequently, to accept invitations to the huge formal 
 dinners given to her husband as head of a department, and 
 chief clerk of a section of the Ministry of the Interior — din- 
 ners which Bridau duly returned — Agathe then followed the 
 expensive fashions of the day; but on coming in she gladly 
 shed this ceremonial splendor, and relapsed at home into 
 provincial simplicity. Once a week, on Thursdays, Bridau 
 entertained his friends, and on Shrove-Tuesday he always 
 gave a grand ball. 
 
 This brief record is the whole history of a married life 
 which saw but three events — the birth of two children, one 
 three years younger than the other, and Bridau's death, which 
 took place in 1808; he was simply killed by night-work, just 
 as the Emperor was about to promote him in his office, and 
 to make him a Count and Privy Councillor. At this time 
 Napoleon was devoting his attention to home administration; 
 he overloaded Bridau with work, and finally undermined this 
 valiant official's health. Napoleon, of whom Bridau had never 
 asked the least thing, had inquired into his style of living 
 and his fortune. On hearing that this devoted servant had 
 nothing but his salary, he understood that here was one of 
 those incorruptible creatures who gave dignity and moral 
 tone to his rule, and he intended to surprise Bridau by some 
 magnificent recompense. It was his anxiety to finish an 
 immense piece of work before Napoleon should start for 
 Spain that killed this worthy man, by bringing on an attack 
 of acute fever. 
 
 On the Emperor's return, while in Paris for a few days pre- 
 paring for the campaign of 1809, on hearing of Bridau's 
 death, he exclaimed, "There are some men who can never be 
 replaced!" Struck by a devotion that could never have ex- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 11 
 
 pected such dazzling rewards as he reserved for his soldiers, 
 Napoleon determined to create an Order, with handsome pen- 
 sions attached, for his Civil servants, as he had founded that 
 of the Legion of Honor for the Military. The impression 
 made on him by Bridau's death suggested the formation of the 
 Order of the Reunion; but he never had time to complete the 
 organization of this aristocratic class, which is now so utterly 
 forgotten that, on meeting with the name of this ephemeral 
 Order, most readers will wonder what was its badge; it was 
 worn with a blue ribbon. The Emperor styled it the Order 
 of the Reunion, with the intention of combining the Order 
 of the Golden Fleece of Spain with that of the Golden Fleece 
 of Austria. But Providence, as a Prussian diplomate said, 
 was able to hinder such profanation. 
 
 The Emperor inquired into Madame Bridau's circum- 
 stances. The two boys had each a full scholarship at the 
 Lycee Imperial, and the Emperor charged all the cost of their 
 education to his privy purse. He then entered Madame 
 Bridau's name on the Pension List for four thousand francs 
 a year, intending, no doubt, to provide ultimately for her two 
 sons. 
 
 After her marriage till her husband's death Madame Bridau 
 had no correspondence whatever with Issoudun. Immedi- 
 ately before the birth of her second boy she heard of her 
 mother's death. When her father died — she knew he had 
 loved her but little — the Emperor's coronation was imminent, 
 and the ceremony gave her husband so much to do that she 
 would not leave him. Jean-Jacques Eouget, her brother, 
 had never written her a word since she had quitted Issoudun. 
 Though grieved by this tacit repudiation by her family, 
 Agathe at last thought but seldom of those who never thought 
 of her at all. She received a letter once a year from her god- 
 mother, Madame Hochon, and answered it in commonplace 
 phrases, never heeding the warnings which the worthy and 
 pious woman gave her in veiled hints. 
 
 Some time before Doctor Eouget's death, Madame Hochon 
 had written to her goddaughter that she would get nothing 
 
12 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 from her father, unless she armed Monsieur Hochon with a 
 power of attorney. Agathe hated the idea of worrying her 
 brother. Whether Bridau supposed that this appropriation 
 was in conformity with the common law of the province of 
 Berry, or whether the clean-handed and upright husband 
 shared his wife's magnanimity and indifference to pecuniary 
 interests, he would not listen to Eoguin, his attorney, who 
 advised him to take advantage of his high position to dispute 
 the will by which the father had succeeded in robbing his 
 daughter of her legal share. Husband and wife thus sanc- 
 tioned what was done at Issoudun. However, Eoguin had 
 led the official to reflect on the damage to his wife's fortune. 
 The worthy man perceived that in the event of his death 
 Agathe would have nothing to depend on. He then looked 
 into his affairs, and found that between 1793 and 1805 he and 
 his wife had been obliged to draw out about thirty thousand 
 francs of the fifty thousand which old Kouget had given to 
 his daughter. He now invested the remaining twenty thou- 
 sand in the funds, which then stood at forty, so Agathe had 
 about two thousand francs a year in State securities. 
 Thus, as a widow, Madame Bridau could live very decently 
 on six thousand francs a year. Still very provincial, she was 
 about to dismiss the man-servant, keep only the cook, and 
 move to another set of rooms; but Madame Descoings, her 
 intimate friend, who persisted in calling herself her aunt, gave 
 up her apartment and came to live with Agathe, taking the 
 departed Bridau's study for her bedroom. The two widows 
 joined their incomes, and found themselves possessed of 
 twelve thousand francs a year. 
 
 Such an arrangement seemed simple and natural. But 
 nothing in life demands greater circumspection than arrange- 
 ments which seem natural ; we are always on our guard against 
 what appears extraordinary; and so we see that men of great 
 experience, lawyers, judges, physicians, and priests attach 
 immense importance to such simple matters; and they are 
 thought captious. The serpent under flowers is one of the 
 finest emblems bequeathed to us by the ancients as a warning 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 13 
 
 for our conduct. How often does a simpleton exclaim, as an 
 excuse in his own eyes and those of others, "It was such a 
 simple matter, that any one would have been caught !" 
 
 In 1809 Madame Descoings, who never told her age, was 
 sixty-five years old. Spoken of in her day as La Belle 
 Epiciere, she was one of those rare women whom time spares, 
 and owed to an excellent constitution the privilege of preserv- 
 ing her beauty, though, of course, it could no longer bear seri- 
 ous examination. Of middle height, plump and fresh- 
 colored, she had fine shoulders, and a warmly fair skin. Her 
 light hair, tending to chestnut, showed no change of hue in 
 spite of Descoings' disastrous end. She was extremely dainty, 
 and liked cooking rich little dishes for her own eating; but 
 though she seemed devoted to the kitchen, she was also very 
 fond of the theatre, and, moreover, she indulged a vice which 
 she wrapped in the deepest mystery — she put into the lottery. 
 Is not the lottery, perhaps, the gulf which mythology has 
 figured under the bottomless vat of the Danaids ? 
 
 This woman — we may speak so of one who gambles in the 
 lottery — spent rather too much in dress, no doubt, like all 
 women who are so lucky as to remain youthful in advancing 
 years ; but with the exception of these little failings, she was 
 the easiest creature to live with. Eeady to agree with every- 
 body, never contradictory, she was attractive by her gentle 
 and contagious cheerfulness. She had especially one Parisian 
 characteristic which bewitches retired clerks and traders — she 
 understood a joke. If she did not marry a third husband, 
 that, no doubt, was the fault of the times. During the wars 
 of the Empire, marrying men found handsome and wealthy 
 girls too readily to trouble their heads about a woman of 
 sixty. 
 
 Madame Descoings tried to cheer Madame Bridau; she 
 made her go often to the play, or out driving; she provided 
 her with capital little dinners; she even tried to marry her 
 to her son Bixiou. Alas ! she was forced to confess to her the 
 terrible secret that had been so Jealously kept, by herself, by 
 the departed Descoings, and by her lawyer. The youth- 
 
14 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 ful, dressy Madame Deseoings, who owned to no more than 
 thirty-six, had a son of thirty-five named Bixiou, a widower, 
 and Major of the 21st foot, who was afterwards killed at 
 Dresden, as a colonel, leaving an only child, a boy. His 
 mother, who never saw her grandson but in secret, spoke of the 
 colonel as a son of her husband's by his first wife. Her con- 
 fession was an act of expediency; the colonel's boy, who was 
 at school at the Lyeee Imperial with the two Bridaus, held 
 a half -scholarship. This youth, very sharp and knowing even 
 in his school-days, made a great reputation later as an artist 
 and a wit. 
 
 Agathe cared for nothing on earth but her children, and 
 would live only for them; she refused to marry again, alike 
 from good sense and from faithful attachment. But a woman 
 finds it easier to be a good wife than to be a good mother. A 
 widow has two duties of a contradictory nature — she is a 
 mother, and she ought to exert a father's power. Few women 
 are strong enough to understand and play this double part. 
 And so poor Agathe, with all her virtues, was the innocent 
 cause of many misfortunes. As a result of her lack of insight, 
 and the trustfulness habitual to lofty natures, Agathe was the 
 victim of Madame Deseoings, who dragged her into over- 
 whelming disaster. This woman had a fancy for sets of 
 three numbers, and the lottery grants no credit to ticket 
 holders. As housekeeper, she could spend the money allotted 
 to the marketing in such ventures, and gradually increased 
 the debt in the hope of enriching her grandson, her dear 
 Agathe, and the young Bridaus. When it amounted to ten 
 thousand francs she staked higher sums, always hoping that 
 the favorite combination, which had not yet come out in ten 
 years, would cover the loss. Then the debt swelled rapidly. 
 It reached the sum of twenty thousand francs; Madame Des- 
 eoings lost her head, and her numbers did not come out. 
 
 Then she wished to pledge her fortune in order to repay 
 her niece, but her la.wyer Eoguin showed her that this honest 
 scheme was impossible. The elder Eouget, at the death of 
 his brother-in-law Deseoings, had taken over his liabilities 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 15 
 
 and assets, indemnifying the widow by a life-annuity, charged 
 on Jean-Jacques Eouget's estate. No usurer would consent 
 to lend twenty thousand francs to a woman of sixty-five on a 
 life interest worth about four thousand, at a time when ten 
 per cent could be got anywhere. One morning Madame Des- 
 coings threw herself at her niece's feet, and with many sobs 
 confessed the state of affairs; Madame Bridau did not re- 
 proach her. She sent away the man-servant and the cook; 
 sold all but the most indispensable furniture ; sold out three- 
 quarters of her State securities, paid everything, and gave up 
 her apartment. 
 
 One of the most hideous comers of Paris is, beyond doubt, 
 the Eue Mazarine, between the crossing of the Rue Guenegaud, 
 to where it opens into the Rue de la Seine behind the Palais 
 de rinstitut. The tall, gray walls of the College and Library 
 presented to the city of Paris by Cardinal Mazarin cast chill 
 shadows over this strip of street; the sun rarely shines on it, 
 the northerly blast sweeps through it. The poor ruined 
 widow went to lodge on the third floor of a house in this 
 damp, dark, cold spot. 
 
 Facing the house were the buildings of the Institute, where, 
 at that time, were the dens of the wild beasts known to the 
 townsfolk as artists, and to artists as rapins — daubers, art stu- 
 dents. A man might go in a raping and might come out with 
 the prize scholarship at Rome. This transformation was not 
 effected without much amazing uproar at the time of year 
 when the competitors were shut up in these cages. To take 
 the prize, the aspiring sculptor had to execute, within a 
 given time, a clay model of a statue; the painter, one of the 
 pictures you may behold at the Ecole des Beaux-arts; the 
 musician had to compose a cantata; the architect, a design 
 for a public building. At the time when these lines are 
 penned, the menagerie has been transferred from those cold 
 and gloomy buildings to the elegant Palace of the Fine Arts, 
 a few yards from thence. 
 
 Madame Bridau's windows commanded a view of these 
 
16 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 barred cells, a singularly dreary outlook. To the north the 
 dome of the Institute closes in the prospect; looking up the 
 street, the only delectation for the eye is the line of hackney 
 cabs on the stand at the top of the Eue Mazarine. Indeed, 
 the widow at last placed three boxes of earth outside her 
 windows, in which she cultivated one of those aerial gardens, 
 so obnoxious to the regulations of the police, which somewhat 
 purify the light and air. 
 
 The house, backing against one in the Eue de Seine, is 
 necessarily shallow ; the staircase turns in a spiral. The third 
 floor is the top; three windows and three rooms — a dining- 
 room, a little sitting-room, and a bedroom ; at the back, on the 
 other side of the landing, a small kitchen ; under the roof two 
 boys' rooms, and a vast unused garret. Madame Bridau chose 
 this apartment for three reasons: the low rent, only four 
 hundred francs, so she agreed for a nine years' lease ; the near- 
 ness of her boys' school, for it was not far from the Lycee 
 Imperial ; and finally, it was in the quarter where she was ac- 
 customed to live. The interior of the rooms was in harmony 
 with the building. The dining-room, hung with cheap 
 flowered paper in yellow and green, with an unpolished tile 
 floor, had the barest necessary furniture — a table, two 
 little sideboards, and six chairs brought from her old home. 
 The drawing-room was graced by an Aubusson carpet, given 
 to Bridau when his office was last refurnished. The widow 
 placed in it that common mahogany furniture, finished with 
 Egyptian heads, manufactured by the gross in 1806 by Jacob 
 Desmalter, and covered with silk damask with white conven- 
 tional roses. 
 
 Above the sofa, a portrait of Bridau in pastel, the work^of 
 a friend, attracted the eye at once. Though the art was not 
 above criticism, the brow plainly showed the firmness of the 
 unknown great citizen. The calm look of his eyes, at once 
 proud and mild, was happily rendered ; the sagacity to which 
 the prudent lips bore witness, and the honest smile, the whole 
 tone of the man of whom the Emperor spoke as Justum et 
 tenacem, had been caught, if not with talent, at any rate with 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 17 
 
 truth. As you looked at this portrait, you could see that this 
 man had always done his duty. His countenance expressed 
 the incorruptibility which must be granted to many of the 
 men employed during the Eepublic. 
 
 Opposite, over a card table, was the brilliantly-colored 
 picture of the Emperor by Vernet, in which Napoleon is seen 
 riding past swiftly, and followed by his escort. Agathe 
 allowed herself the luxury of two large bird-cages — one full of 
 canaries, and one of exotic birds ; she had taken up this child- 
 like fancy since her loss — irreparable to her, and to many 
 others. 
 
 As to Agathe's bedroom, by the end of three months it had 
 become, what it remained till the luckless day when she was 
 obHged to leave it — a chaos which no description could re- 
 duce to order. Cats were at home in the armchairs; the 
 birds, sometimes set at liberty, left their traces on all the 
 furniture. The poor, kind soul strewed millet and groundsel 
 for them in all parts of the room; the cats found tidbits in 
 broken saucers. Clothes lay about. It was an atmosphere 
 of provincialism and fidelity. Everything that had belonged 
 to Bridau was carefully treasured there ; his writing apparatus 
 was kept with the care which the widow of a knight would have 
 devoted to his armor. This woman's touching worship may 
 be understood from a single fact — she had wrapped a pen in a 
 sealed packet and written on it, "The last pen used by my dear 
 husband." The cup from which he had drunk for the last 
 time was under glass on the chimney-shelf. At a later date 
 caps and "fronts" crowned the glass shades that covered these 
 treasured relics. 
 
 After Bridau's death, his young widow of five-and-thirty 
 never betrayed a trace of vanity or womanly pride. Parted from 
 the only man she had really known, esteemed, and loved, who 
 had never caused her the smallest pang, she no longer felt 
 herself a woman; she cared for nothing; she ceased to dress. 
 Nothing could be more unaffected or more complete than this 
 surrender of married happiness and personal care. Some 
 souls are endowed by love with the power of merging their 
 
18 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 individuality in another; and when the other is gone, life is 
 no longer possible. Agathe, who could henceforth live only 
 for her children, felt the deepest grief at seeing how many 
 privations they must suffer in consequence of her ruin. From 
 the day when she moved to the Eue Mazarine there was a 
 tinge of melancholy in her expression that was very touching. 
 She did indeed count a little on the Emperor, but he could do 
 no more than he was already doing ; he allowed each boy, be- 
 sides his scholarship, six hundred francs a year out of his 
 privy purse. 
 
 As to the dashing Madame Descoings, she had an apart- 
 ment similar to her niece's on the second floor. She had 
 assigned to Madame Bridau a sum of a thousand crowns, to 
 be taken as a first charge on her annuity; Koguin had taken 
 care of this for Madame Bridau, but it would be seven years 
 before this slow repayment could undo the mischief. Eoguin, 
 instructed to replace the fifteen hundred francs in dividends, 
 banked the sums he retained on this account. Madame Des- 
 coings, reduced to twelve hundred francs a year, lived poorly 
 enough with her niece. The two honest, helpless creatures 
 had a woman in for the morning's work only. The aunt, who 
 liked cooking, managed the dinner. In the evening, a few 
 friends, clerks in the office for whom Bridau had found places, 
 would come to play a game with the two widows. 
 
 Madame Descoings still clung to her three numbers, which 
 obstinately refused, as she said, ever to come out. She still 
 hoped, by one turn of luck, to repay all she had surreptitiously 
 borrowed from her niece. She loved the two little Bridaus 
 better than her grandson Bixiou, so strongly did she feel that 
 she had wronged them, and so greatly did she admire the 
 sweetness of her niece, who, at the very worst, never spoke the 
 lightest word of blame. And so it may be supposed that she 
 spoiled Joseph and Philippe. Like all persons who have a 
 vice to be forgiven, this old gambler in the Imperial lottery 
 would treat them to little dinners, cramming them with 
 dainties. A little later Joseph and Philippe could, with the 
 greatest ease, extract from her little gifts of money; the 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 19 
 
 younger to buy stumps, chalk, paper, and prints; the elder 
 for apple-puffs, marbles, balls of string, and knives. Her 
 passion had brought her down to being content with fifty 
 francs a month for all expenses, that she might gamble with 
 the remainder. 
 
 Madame Bridau on her part, out of motherly affection, did 
 not allow her expenses to exceed that sum. Topunishherself for 
 her foolish confidence, she now heroically cut off all her little 
 enjoyments. It often happens to a timid soul and narrow 
 intellect that a single experience of crushed feelings and 
 aroused suspicions leads to such an extreme development of a 
 failing that it acquires the consistency of a virtue. The Em- 
 peror might forget, she told herself; he might be killed in 
 battle — ^her pension would die with him. She shuddered as 
 she saw such probabilities of her children being left abso- 
 lutely penniless. Incompetent as she was to understand 
 Eoguin's calculations, when he tried to prove to her that in 
 seven years a charge of three thousand francs a year on 
 Madame Descoings^ annuity would replace the securities she 
 had sold, she put no trust in the lawyer, or her aunt, or the 
 State; she relied only on herself and her own thrift. By 
 saving a thousand crowns a year out of her pension, in ten 
 years she would have thirty thousand francs, which would at 
 any rate secure her children fifteen hundred francs a year. At 
 six-and-thirty she had a right to hope that she might live 
 twenty years, and by carrying out this system she might leave 
 each of them enough for the bare necessities of life. 
 
 Thus the two widows had sunk from unreal opulence to vol- 
 untary penury — one under the influence of a vice, the other 
 under the promptings of the purest virtue. ISTone of all these 
 trivial things are foreign to the deep lesson to be derived from 
 this story, founded on the sordid interests of common life, 
 but with a scope all the wider perhaps in consequence. 
 
 The view over the schools, the scampering art students in 
 the street, the need for looking at the sky, if only to turn 
 from the hideous outlook on every side of that mouldy street; 
 the countenance of the portrait, full of soul and dignity in 
 
20 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 spite of the amateurish handling ; the association of the rich 
 coloring, harmonized by age, of this quiet and peaceful home, 
 the greenery of its hanging gardens, the poverty of the house- 
 hold, the mother's preference for her elder son, and her dis- 
 like to the younger boy's taste, — in short, the sum-total of 
 the incidents and circumstances which form the prologue to 
 the story, constituted perhaps the active causes to which we 
 owe Joseph Bridau, one of the great painters of the modern 
 French school. 
 
 Philippe, the elder of Bridau's two children, was strikingly 
 like his mother. Though fair-haired and blue-eyed, he had 
 a daring look which was often mistaken for high spirit and 
 courage. Old Claparon, who had entered the office at the 
 same time with Bridau, and was one of the faithful friends 
 who came in the evening to play a game with the two widows, 
 would say of Philippe two or three times in a month, as he 
 patted his cheek, "Here is a brave little man, who can always 
 say boo to a goose !" The child, thus encouraged, assumed 
 a sort of pluck out of bravado. His temper having taken 
 this bent, he became skilled in all physical exercises. By 
 dint of fighting at school, he acquired the hardihood and scorn 
 of pain which give rise to military courage, but, of course, 
 he also acquired the greatest aversion for study ; for a public 
 school can never solve the difficult problem of developing 
 equally and simultaneously the powers of the body and of the 
 mind. Agathe inferred from his purely superficial resem- 
 blance to her that they must agree in mind, and firmly be- 
 lieved that she should some day find in him her own refined 
 feeling, ennobled by a man's force of nature. 
 
 At the time when Madame Bridau moved to the gloomy 
 apartment in the Eue Mazarine, Philippe was fifteen, and 
 the engaging ways of a youth at that age confirmed his 
 mother's belief. Joseph, who was three years younger, was an 
 ugly likeness of his father. In the first place, his bushy black 
 hair was always ill-kempt whatever was done to it; while 
 his brother, though he was never quiet, was always trim; 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 21 
 
 then, by some inscrutable fatality — ^but a too persistent fatal- 
 ity grows into a habit — Joseph could never keep his clothes 
 clean; dressed in a new suit, he made old clothes of them at 
 once. The elder, out of personal vanity, took care of his 
 things. Unconsciously, the mother accustomed herself to 
 scold Joseph and hold up the example of his brother. So 
 Agathe did not always show the same face to her two boys; 
 and when she went to fetch them from school, she would say 
 of Joseph, "I wonder what state his things will be in !" All 
 these trifles drove her heart into the gulf of favoritism. 
 
 N"o one of all the very commonplace people who formed 
 the two widows' visiting circle — neither old du Bruel, nor 
 old Claparon, nor Desroches senior^ nor even the Abbe Loraux, 
 Agathe's director, ever noticed Joseph's powers of observation. 
 Possessed by this taste, the future colorist paid no heed to 
 anything that concerned him; and so long as he was a child, 
 this instinct looked so like stupidity that his father had been 
 somewhat uneasy about him. The extraordinary size of his • 
 skull, and the breadth of his forehead, had at first led them to 
 fear that the child had water on the brain. His face, still 
 so rugged, and odd enough to be thought ugly by those vho 
 cannot see the intellectual purpose of a countenance, was, 
 during his boyhood, rather pinched. The features, which 
 developed later, seemed crushed together, and the intensity 
 with which the child studied everything puckered them still 
 more. Thus Philippe soothed all his mother's vanities, while 
 Joseph never won her a compliment. While Joseph was silent 
 and dreamy, Philippe could bring out those clever speeches 
 and repartees which tempt parents to believe that their chil- 
 dren will be remarkable men. The mother looked for wonders 
 from Philippe, she founded no hopes on Joseph. 
 
 Joseph's predisposition to art was brought to light by a 
 most commonplace incident. In 1812, during the Easter 
 holidays, as he was returning from a walk in the Tuileries 
 Gardens with his brother and Madame Descoings, he saw a 
 student scrawl a caricature of some professor on a wall, and 
 admiration of this chalk sketch, fuU of sparkling fun, riveted 
 
22 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 him to the spot. On the following day the boy placed him- 
 self at a window to watch the students going in by the door 
 in the Rue Mazarine; he stole downstairs, and slipped into the 
 long courtyard of the Institute, where he saw a number of 
 statues and busts, marble rough-hewn, terra-cotta figures, 
 studies in plaster ; he gazed at them in a fever of excitement, 
 for his instinct was roused, his vocation seethed within him. 
 He went into a large low room, the door standing open, and 
 there saw a dozen or so of lads drawing a statue; he was at 
 once the butt of their tricks. 
 
 "Pretty Dick! pretty Dick!" said the first to spy him, 
 flinging some bread crumbs at him. 
 
 'TVhose brat is that?" 
 
 "Heavens, how ugly he is !" 
 
 In short, for a quarter of an hour Joseph stood the horse- 
 play of the studio — that of the great sculptor Chaudet; but 
 after making game of him, the pupils were struck by his 
 tenacity and his expression, and asked him what he wanted. 
 Joseph replied that he very much wished to learn to draw; 
 and thereupon everybody was by way of encouraging him. 
 The boy, taken in by this friendly tone, explained that he was 
 Madame Bridau's son. 
 
 "Oh ! then, indeed ! If you are Madame Bridau's son," they 
 sang out from every corner of the studio, "you may become 
 a great man. Hurrah for Madame Bridau's son. Is your 
 mother pretty? To judge from your pumpkin head as a 
 specimen, she ought to be a sweet one to look at." 
 
 "So you want to be an artist," said the eldest student, leav- 
 ing his place, and coming to Joseph to play him some trick. 
 "But you must be plucky, you know, and put up with dreadful 
 things. Yes, there are trials, tests that are enough to break 
 your legs and arms. All these fellows that you see — well, 
 every one of them has passed the tests. Now, that one, for 
 instance, he went for seven days and nights without food. 
 Come, let's see if you are fit to become an artist ?" 
 
 He took one of the boy's arms and placed it straight up in 
 the air, then he set the other at an angle as if about to strike 
 out. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 23 
 
 "We call that tlie ordeal of the telegraph," said he. "If 
 you stand like that without letting your arms sink, or chang- 
 ing your attitude for a quarter of an hour — well, you will 
 have shown that you have good pluck !" 
 
 "Now, little chap, show your mettle," said the others. 
 "By Jove, you must go through something to become an 
 artist." 
 
 Joseph, in all the good faith of a boy of thirteen, remained 
 motionless for about five minutes, and all the pupils looked 
 at him very gravely. 
 
 "Oh ! your arm is sinking," said one. 
 
 "Come, steady!" said another. 
 
 "By Jove, the Emperor Napoleon stood for at least a month, 
 just as you see him there," added a third, pointing to 
 Chaudet's fine statue. 
 
 The Emperor was standing holding the Imperial sceptre; 
 and this work was thrown down in 1814 from the column it 
 finished so nobly. 
 
 In about ten minutes the perspiration was standing on 
 Joseph's brow. At this moment a little man came in, bald, 
 pale, and fragile; respectful silence reigned in the studio. 
 
 "Now then, you scamps, what are you about?" he asked, 
 looking at the studio victim. 
 
 "The little chap is sitting to us," said the tall student who 
 had placed Joseph in position. 
 
 "Are not you ashamed of torturing a poor child so?" said 
 Chaudet, putting down Joseph's arms. "How long have you 
 been standing there?" he asked, with a friendly pat on the 
 boy's cheek. 
 
 "About a quarter of an hour." 
 
 "And what brings you here?" 
 
 "I want to be an artist." 
 
 "And where have you come from ; whom do you belong to ?" 
 
 "From mamma's." 
 
 "Oh, ho ! from mamma's !" cried the pupils. 
 
 "Silence among the easels!" cried Chaudet. "What is 
 your mother?" 
 
24 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "She is Madame Bridau. My papa, who is dead, was a 
 friend of the Emperor's. And if you will only teach me to 
 draw, the Emperor will pay whatever yon ask." 
 
 "His father was head of a department in the Ministry of 
 the Interior," cried Chaudet, struck by a reminiscence. 
 "And you want already to be an artist ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Come here as often as you like ; you may play here. Give 
 him an easel, paper, and chalk, and leave him to himself. 
 Remember, you pickles, that his father did me a service," 
 said the sculptor. "Here, you. Well-rope, go and buy some- 
 thing nice — some cakes and sugar-plums," he added, giving 
 some silver to the lad who had bullied Joseph. "We shall 
 soon see if you are an artist by the way you munch cabbage," 
 he went on, stroking Joseph's chin. 
 
 Then he went the round of his pupils, Joseph following 
 him, listening and trying to understand. The treat was 
 brought ; all the lads, the sculptor himself, and the child had 
 their share. Then Joseph was made much of, as he had be- 
 fore been made game of. This scene, in which the rough fun 
 and good heart of the artist tribe were revealed to him, as he 
 understood by instinct, made a prodigious impression on the 
 boy. This glimpse of Chaudet the sculptor, snatched away 
 by a too early death while the Emperor's patronage promised 
 him glory, was like a vision to Joseph. 
 
 The child said nothing to his mother of this escapade, but 
 every Sunday and Thursday he spent three hours in Chaudet's 
 studio. Madame Deseoings, always ready to humor the 
 cherubs' fancies, henceforth gave Joseph charcoal, red chalk, 
 lithographs, and drawing-paper. At the Lycee Imperial the 
 budding artist sketched the masters, took portraits of his 
 school-fellows, scrawled on the dormitory walls, and was 
 astonishingly diligent in the drawing-class. Lemire, his 
 master there, astounded not merely by his talent, but by the 
 progress he made, came to speak to Madame Bridau of her 
 son's evident vocation. Agathe, a true provincial, and as 
 ignorant of art as she was accomplished in housekeeping, was 
 
She found Chaudec in his blue overall, modelling 
 his latest statue 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 25 
 
 filled with alarms. When Lemire was gone, she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "Oh !" she cried, as Madame Deseoings came in, "I am un- 
 done ! Joseph, whom I meant to make a clerk, who has his way 
 ready made for him in the Ministry of the Interior, and 
 guarded by the shade of his father, would have been at the 
 head of an office by the time he was flve-and-twenty. — Well, 
 he is bent on being a painter — a beggar's trade. I always 
 knew that boy would bring me nothing but trouble !" 
 
 Madame Deseoings had to confess that for some months 
 past she had been encouraging Joseph in his passion and 
 screening his stolen Sunday and Thursday visits to the School 
 of Art. At the Salon, whither she had taken him, the little 
 fellow's interest in the pictures was something miraculous. 
 
 "And if he understands painting at the age of thirteen, my 
 dear, your Joseph will be a man of genius." 
 
 "I daresay ; and see what genius brought his father to ! To 
 die, worked to death, at forty." 
 
 Late in the autumn, just as Joseph was reaching the age of 
 fourteen, Agathe, in spite of Madame Deseoings' entreaties, 
 went across to see Chaudet, and insist that her son should not 
 be led into mischief. She found Chaudet in his blue over- 
 all, modeling his latest statue. He was barely civil in his re- 
 ception of the widow of the man who had once done him a 
 service in very critical circumstances, but his health was 
 already undermined ; he was working with the fevered energy 
 which enables a man to do in a few moments things which it 
 is difficult to achieve in as many months ; he had just hit on a 
 thing he had long been striving for, and handled his clay and 
 modeling tool with hasty jerks which, to Agathe, in her igno- 
 rance, seemed to be those of a maniac. In any other frame of 
 mind Chaudet would have laughed outright ; but as he heard 
 this mother blaspheming Art, bewailing the fate forced upon 
 her son, and requesting that he might never more be admitted 
 to the studio, he broke out in sacred fury. 
 
 "I am under obligations to your lamented husband; I 
 hoped to make him some return by helping your son, by 
 
26 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 watching over your little Joseph's iirst step in the noblest of 
 all careers !" he exclaimed. "Yes, madame, I may tell you, 
 if you do not know it, that a great artist is a king, more than 
 a king ; for, in the first place, he is happier, and he is inde- 
 pendent ; he lives as he pleases ; and besides, he rules over the 
 world of imagination. Your son has a splendid future before 
 him! Such talents as his are rare; they are not revealed 
 so young in any artists but a Giotto, a Eaphael, a Titian, a 
 Eubens, a Murillo — for he will be a painter, I think, rather 
 than a sculptor. Light of Heaven ! If I had such a boy, I 
 should be as happy as the Emperor is in being the father of 
 the King of Rome ! — Well, madame, you are mistress of your 
 child's fate. Go, make an idiot of him, a man who will only 
 put one leg before the other, a wretched scrivener; you will 
 be committing murder ! I only hope that, in spite of all your 
 efforts, he will always remain an artist ! A vocation is stronger 
 than all the obstacles opposed to its working. A vocation! 
 — the word means a call — Ah ! it is election by God ! 
 
 "But you will make your child miserable !" 
 
 He violently flung the handful of clay he had ceased to need 
 into a tub, and said to his model, "That will do for to-day." 
 
 Agathe looked up, and saw a naked woman sitting on a 
 stool, in a corner of the studio which had not yet come under 
 her eye. At the sight she fled in horror. 
 
 "You are not to let little Bridau come here any more," said 
 Chaudet to his pupils. "Madame his mother does not ap- 
 prove." 
 
 "Hoo-oo !" shouted the lads as Agathe closed the door. 
 
 "And Joseph has been going to that place !" said the poor 
 woman, in consternation at what she had seen and heard. 
 
 As soon as the students of painting and sculpture heard 
 that Madame Bridau would not allow her son to become an 
 artist, all their delight was to get Joseph to their own rooms. 
 In spite of the promise extracted from him by his mother 
 not to go any more to the Institute, the boy often stole into 
 a studio that Eegnauld used there, and was encouraged to 
 daub canvas. When the widow tried to complain, Chaudet's 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 27 
 
 pupils told her that Eegnauld was not Chaudet, that she had 
 not made them the guardians of monsieur her son, and 
 laughed at her in a thousand ways. The rascally students 
 composed and sang a ballad on Madame Bridau in a hundred 
 and thirty-seven verses. 
 
 On the evening of that melancholy day, Agathe refused to 
 play cards, and sat in her armchair, a prey to such deep melan- 
 choly, that the tears welled up to her beautiful eyes. 
 
 "What is the matter,, Madame Bridau ?" asked old Clapa- 
 ron. 
 
 "She believes that her son will have to beg his bread be- 
 cause he has the bump of painting," said Madame Descoings. 
 "But I have not the smallest misgiving as to my stepson's boy, 
 little Bixiou, though he too has a passion for drawing. Men 
 are made to fight their way." 
 
 "Madame is right," said Desroches, a hard, dry man, who in 
 spite of his abilities had never been able to rise in his office. 
 "I happily have but one son; for with my salary of eighteen 
 hundred francs, and my wife, who makes barely twelve hun- 
 dred by her license to sell stamps, what would have become of 
 me? I have articled my boy to an attorney; he gets twenty- 
 five francs a month and his breakfast, and I give him the same 
 sum; he dines and sleeps at home. That is all he has; he 
 must needs go on, and he will make his way. I have cut out 
 more work for my youngster than if he were at college, and 
 he will be an attorney some day; when I treat him to the 
 play he is as happy as a king, he hugs me ! Oh ! I keep him 
 tight! He has to account to me for all his money. You 
 are too easy with your children. If your boy wants to try 
 roughing it, let him alone ! He will turn out all right." 
 
 "For my part," said du Bruel, a retired head-clerk who 
 had just taken his pension, "my boy is but sixteen, and his 
 mother worships him. But I would not listen to a vocation 
 that declared itself at such an early age. I think boys want 
 directing." 
 
 "You, monsieur, are rich; you are a man, and have but one 
 child," said Agathe. 
 
28 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "On my honor," Claparon went on,, "our children are our 
 tyrants {in hearts). Mine drives me mad; he has brought 
 me to ruin, and at last I have given him up altogether (inde- 
 pendence). Well, he is all the better pleased, and so am I. 
 The rascal was partly the death of his poor mother. He be- 
 came a commercial traveler, and it was the very life for him ; 
 no sooner was he in the house than he wanted to be out of it ; 
 he never could rest, he never would learn. All I pray Heaven 
 is that I may die without seeing him disgrace my name ! — 
 Those who have no children miss many pleasures, but they 
 also escape many troubles." 
 
 "Just like a father !" said Agathe, beginning to cry again. 
 
 "What I tell you, my dear Madame Bridau, is to prove to 
 you that you must allow your boy to become a painter ; other- 
 wise you will lose your time " 
 
 "If you were capable of keeping him in hand," said the 
 harsh Desroches, "I would tell you to oppose his wishes ; but, 
 seeing you so weak with them, I say — let him daub and 
 scribble." 
 
 "Lost !" said Claparon. 
 
 "What ? Lost !" cried the unhappy mother. 
 
 "Oh yes, my Independence in hearts — ^that dry stick Des- 
 roches always makes me lose." 
 
 "Be comforted, Agathe," said Madame Descoings ; "Joseph 
 will be a great man." 
 
 At the end of this discussion, which was like every earthly 
 discussion, the widow's friends united in one opinion, which 
 by no means put an end to her perplexities. She was advised 
 to allow Joseph to follow his bent. 
 
 "And if he is not a man of genius," said du Bruel, who 
 was civil to Agathe, "you can always get him a place." 
 
 On the landing Madame Descoings, seeing out the three 
 old clerks, called them the "three Sages of Greece." 
 
 "She worries herself too much," said du Bruel. 
 
 "She may think herself only too lucky that her boy will do 
 anything!" said Claparon. 
 
 "If only God preserves the Emperor," said Desroches, 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 29 
 
 "Joseph will be provided for elsewhere. So what has she to be 
 anxious about ?" 
 
 "She is afraid of everything where her children are con- 
 cerned/' replied Madame Descoings. 
 
 "Well, dear little woman," she went on, as she re-entered the 
 room, "you see they are aU of one mind. What have you to 
 cry for now?" 
 
 "Oh ! if it were Philippe, I should have no fears. You do 
 not know what goes on in those studios. They actually have ' 
 naked women there !" 
 
 "But they have a fire, I hope," said Madame Descoings. 
 
 A few days later news came of the disastrous rout at Mos- 
 cow. Napoleon was returning to organize fresh armies and 
 call on Prance for further sacrifices. 'Now the poor mother 
 was tortured by very different alarms. Philippe, who did not 
 like college, was positively bent on serving the Emperor. A 
 review at the Tuileries, the last Napoleon ever held, of 
 which Philippe was a spectator, had turned his head. At 
 that period of military display the sight of the uniforms, the 
 authority of an epaulette, had an irresistible fascination for 
 some young men. Philippe believed himself to have the same 
 taste for military service that his brother had for the arts. 
 
 Unknown to his mother, he wrote to the Emperor a petition 
 in the following words : 
 
 "SiEB^ — I am the son of your Bridau ; I am eighteen years 
 old, 'and measure nearly six feet; I have stout legs, a good 
 constitution, and I wish to be one of your soldiers. I appeal 
 to your favor to be enrolled in the army, etc." 
 
 Within twenty-four hours the Emperor had sent Philippe 
 to the Imperial Military School of Saint-Cyr; and six months 
 later, in November 1813, he called him out as sub-lieutenant 
 in a cavalry regiment. During part of the winter Philippe 
 remained in depot; but as soon as he had learned to ride he 
 set out full of ardor. In the course of the campaign in 
 Prance, he gained the lieutenancy in a skirmish of the ad- 
 vanced guard, when his headlong valor saved his Colonel. 
 
30 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 The Emperor made him Captain after the battle of La Fere- 
 Champenoise, and placed him on the staff. Stimulated by 
 this promotion, at Montereau Philippe won the Cross. Then, 
 having witnessed Napoleon's farewell at Fontainebleau, and 
 being driven to fanaticism by the scene, Captain Philippe 
 refused to serve under the Bourbons. 
 
 When he went home to his mother in July 1814, he found 
 her a ruined woman. In the course of the long vacation 
 Joseph's scholarship was cancelled; and Madame Bridau, 
 whose pension had been paid out of the Emperor's privy purse, 
 vainly applied for a clerkship for him in the offices of the 
 Ministry of the Interior. Joseph, more than ever devoted 
 to painting, was enchanted, and only besought his mother to 
 allow him to go to Monsieur Eegnauld's studio, promising 
 her that he would make a living. He was, he said, high 
 enough in the second class at school, and could get on without 
 rhetoric. 
 
 Philippe, a captain, and wearing an Order at nineteen, after 
 serving under Napoleon on two battlefields, immensely flat- 
 tered his mother's pride ; so, though he was rough, noisy, and 
 in reality devoid of all merit but the vulgar courage of a 
 slashing swordsman, to her he was the man of genius ; while 
 Joseph, who was small, sickly, and thin, with a rugged brow, 
 who loved peace and quiet, and dreamed of fame as an artist, 
 was doomed, as she declared, never to give her anything but 
 worry and anxiety. The winter of 1814-15 was a good one 
 for Joseph, who, by the secret interest of Madame Descoings 
 and of Bixiou, a pupil of Gros, was admitted to work in that 
 famous studio, whence proceeded so many different types of 
 talent, and where he formed a close intimacy with Schinner. 
 
 Then came the great 20th of March; Captain Bridau, who 
 joined the Emperor at Lyons and escorted him back to the 
 Tuileries, was promoted to be Major of the Dragoon Guards. 
 After the battle of Waterloo, where he was wounded, but 
 slightly, and won the Cross of a Commander of the Legion of 
 Honor, he next found himself with Marechal Davoust at 
 Saint-Denis, and not with the army of the Loire; thus, by 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 31 
 
 the interest of Marfchal Davoust, he was allowed to retain 
 his Cross and his rank in the army, but he was put upon half- 
 pay. Joseph, uneasy about the future, studied meanwhile 
 with an ardor that made him ill more than once in the midst 
 of the hurricane of public events. 
 
 "It is the smell of paint," Agathe would say to Madame 
 Descoings. "He ought to give up work that is so bad for 
 his health." 
 
 All Agathe's anxieties were then centered in her son the 
 Lieutenant- Colonel. She saw him again in 1816, fallen from 
 his pay and profits of about nine thousand francs a year as 
 Major in the Emperor's Dragoon Guards, to half-pay amount- 
 ing to three hundred francs a month; she spent her little 
 savings in furnishing for him the attic over the kitchen. 
 
 Philippe was one of the most assiduous Bonapartists that 
 haunted the Cafe Lemblin, a thorough constitutional Boeotia. 
 There he acquired the habits, manners, and style of living 
 of half -pay officers ; nay, he outdid them, as any young man 
 of twenty was sure to do, solemnly vowing a mortal hatred of 
 the Bourbons ; he was not to be talked over, and even refused 
 such opportunities as were offered him of employment in the 
 field with his full rank. In his mother's eyes Philippe was 
 showing great strength of character. 
 
 "His father could have done no better," said she. 
 
 Philippe could live on his half-pay. He would cost his 
 mother nothing, while Joseph was entirely dependent on the 
 two widows. From that moment Agathe's preference for 
 Philippe was manifest. Hitherto it had been covert ; but the 
 persecution under which he suffered as a faithful adherent to 
 the Emperor, the memory of the wound her darling son had 
 received, his courage in adversity — ^which, voluntary as it was, 
 seemed to her noble adversity — brought out Agathe's weak- 
 ness. The words, "He is unfortunate," Justified everything. 
 
 Joseph, whose nature overflowed with the childlike simplicity 
 which is superabundant in the youthful artist-soul, and who 
 had been brought up to admire his elder brother, far from 
 resenting his mother's favoritism, vindicated it by sharing 
 
02 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 in her worship of a "veteran" who had -won Napoleon's 
 Orders in two battles — of a man wounded at Waterloo. How 
 could he doubt the superiority of this big brother, whom he 
 had seen in the splendid green-and-gold uniform of the Dra- 
 goon Guards, at the head of his squadron on the Champ de 
 Mai. And in spite of her preference, Agathe was a good 
 mother. She loved Joseph, but not blindly; she simply did 
 not understand him. Joseph worshiped his mother, whereas 
 Philippe allowed her to adore him. Still, for her the dragoon 
 moderated his military coarseness, while he never disguised 
 his contempt for Joseph, though expressing it not unkindly. 
 As he looked at his brother's powerful head, too large for a 
 body kept thin by constant work, and still, at the age of seven- 
 teen, slight and weakly, he would call him "the brat." His 
 patronizing ways would have been ofEensive but for the artist's 
 indifference, in the belief, indeed, that a soldier always had a 
 kind heart under his rough manners. The poor boy did not 
 yet know that really first-rate military men are as gentle and 
 polite as other superior persons. Genius is everywhere true to 
 itself. 
 
 "Poor child!" Philippe would say to his mother. "Don't 
 tease him ; let him amuse himself." And this contempt was 
 in his mother's eyes an evidence of brotherly affection. 
 
 "Philippe will always love and protect his brother," she 
 thought. 
 
 In 1816 Joseph obtained his mother's permission to con- 
 vert the loft adjoining his bedroom into a painting room, and 
 Madame Descoings gave him a small sum to purchase such 
 things as were indispensable to his "business" as a painter; 
 for in the minds of the two widows painting was but a trade. 
 Joseph, with the energy and zeal that are part of such a 
 vocation, arranged everything in his humble studio with his 
 own hands. The landlord, at Madame Descoings' request, 
 made a skylight in the roof. Thus the attic became a large 
 room, and was painted chocolate-color by Joseph; he hung 
 some sketches against the walls; Agathe, not very willingly, 
 had a small cast-iron stove fixed; and Joseph could now work 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 33 
 
 at home, not, however, neglecting Gros' studio or Schinner's. 
 
 The Constitutional party, consisting largely of half-pay 
 officers and the Bonapartists, were at that time frequently 
 engaged in riots round the House of Eepresentatives, in the 
 name of the Charter, which no one would hear of, and they 
 plotted sundry conspiracies. Philippe, who must needs get 
 mixed up in them, was arrested, but released for lack of evi- 
 dence; but the War Minister cut off his half -pay, reducing 
 him to what might be called punishment pay. France was no 
 longer the place for him; Philippe would end by falling into 
 some trap laid by the Government agents. There was at that 
 time a great talk of these agents provocateurs. So, while 
 Philippe was playing billiards in cafes suspected of disaffec- 
 tion, losing his time, and getting into a habit of drinking 
 various liqueurs, Agathe lived in mortal terrors for the great 
 man of the family. 
 
 The "three Sages of Greece" were too well used to walking 
 the same way every evening, to mounting the stairs to the 
 widows' rooms, and to finding the ladies always expecting 
 them, and anxious to ask them the news of the day, ever to 
 cease their visits; they came regularly to their game in the 
 little green drawing-room. The Ministry of the Interior, 
 thoroughly purged in 1816, had kept Claparon on its lists 
 as one of the trimmers who murmur in an undertone the news 
 from the Moniteur, adding, "Do not get me into trouble!" 
 Desroches, dismissed soon after his senior du Bruel, was still 
 fighting for his pension. These three friends, seeing Agathe's 
 despair, advised her to send the Colonel abroad. 
 
 "There is much talk of conspiracies, and your son, with his 
 character, will be the victim of some such affair, for there is 
 always some one to peach." 
 
 "The Devil !" said du Bruel, in a low voice, and looking 
 about him. "He is the stuff of which his Emperor used to 
 make his marshals, and he ought not to give up his calling. 
 Let him serve in the East, in the Indies " 
 
 "But his health ?" objected Agathe. 
 
 "Why does not he enter an office?" said Desroches. "So 
 
34 A BAOHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 many private concerns are being started. I mean to get a 
 place as head-clerk in an Assurance Company as soon as my 
 pension is settled." 
 
 "Philippe is a soldier; he only cares for fighting," said 
 Agathe the warlike. 
 
 "Then he should be a good boy, and apply for active ser- 
 vice with " 
 
 "This crew ?" cried the widow. "Oh, you will never get me 
 to suggest it !" 
 
 "You are wrong," replied du Bruel. "My son has just been 
 helped on by the Due de Favarreins. The Bourbons are very 
 good to all who join them honestly. Your son will be appoint- 
 ed as Lieutenant-Colonel to a regiment." 
 
 "They will take none but noblemen in the cavalry, and he 
 will never be full colonel," cried Madame Descoings. 
 
 Agathe, in great alarm, implored Philippe to go abroad 
 and offer his services to some foreign power. Any one of 
 them would receive with favor an officer of the Emperor's 
 staff. 
 
 "Serve with foreigners ?" cried Philippe in horror. 
 
 Agathe embraced her son fervently, exclaiming, "He is his 
 father all over." 
 
 "He is quite right," said Joseph. "A Frenchman is too 
 proud of his column to lead any foreign columns. Besides, 
 Napoleon may come back again yet." 
 
 To please his mother, a splendid idea occurred to Philippe : 
 He might join General Lallemand in the United States, and 
 co-operate in founding the Champ d'Asile, one of the most 
 disastrous hoaxes ever perpetrated under the name of a Na- 
 tional Fund. Agathe paid ten thousand francs, and went 
 with her son to le Havre to see him on board ship. 
 
 At the end of 1817, Agathe was managing to live on the six 
 hundred francs a year left to her in Government securities; 
 then, by a happy inspiration, she invested at once the ten 
 thousand francs that remained to her of her savings, and so 
 had seven hundred francs a year more. 
 
 Joseph wished to contribute to her act of sacrifice ; he went 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 35 
 
 about dressed like a bum-bailiff, wearing thick shoes and blue 
 socks; he wore no gloves; he burnt coal instead of wood; he 
 lived on bread, milk, and cheap cheese. The poor lad never 
 heard a word of encouragement from anybody but old Madame 
 Descoings and from Bixiou, his school-fellow and fellow- 
 student, who was by this time employed in drawing capital 
 little caricatures, besides having a small place in a Govern- 
 ment office. 
 
 "How glad I was to see the summer of 1818!" Bridau 
 would often say when speaking of these hard times. "The 
 sun saved my buying fuel." 
 
 He was already quite as good a colorist as Gros, and only 
 went to his master for advice; he was thinking of riding a 
 tilt at the classic school, of breaking free from Greek con- 
 ventionality and the leading strings which fettered an art 
 whose birthright is nature as it is, in the omnipotence of its 
 creativeness and its caprice. Joseph was making ready for the 
 struggle which, from the day when he first exhibited at the 
 Salon, was never more to cease. 
 
 It was a terrible year for them all. Eoguin, the widows' 
 notary, disappeared, taking with him all the money kept back 
 during the past seven years from Madame Descoings' annuity, 
 which by this time ought to have been bringing them in two 
 thousand francs a year. Three days after this catastrophe there 
 came from New York a bill drawn on his mother by Colonel 
 Philippe. The poor fellow, swindled like so many more, had 
 lost everything in the scheme for the Champ d'Asile. This 
 letter, by which Agathe, Madame Descoings, and Joseph all 
 were melted to tears, spoke of debts incurred at New York, 
 where his companions in misfortune had stood surety for 
 him. 
 
 "And it is all my doing that he went!" cried the poor 
 mother, ingenious in finding excuses for Philippe's sins. 
 
 "I advise you not to send him often on such journeys," 
 said old Madame Descoings to her niece. 
 
 Madame Descoings was heroic; she still paid Madame 
 Bridau a thousand crowns ; but she also still paid regularly to 
 
36 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 keep Tip the three imiiibers which had never come out since 
 1799. At this time she began to doubt the honesty of the 
 management. She accused the Government authorities, be- 
 lieving them quite capable of suppressing the issue of the 
 three numbers in the drawing so as to keep up the frenzied 
 deposits of the ticket-holders. 
 
 After a brief consideration of ways and means, it seemed 
 impossible to raise a thousand francs without selling some 
 shares. The two women talked of pledging their plate, some 
 of their house linen, or even part of the furniture that 
 they could do without. Joseph, terrified by these plans, went 
 to call on Gerard, and explained the situation ; the great painter 
 obtained a commission for him from the Master of the 
 Eoyal Household to make two copies of the portrait of Louis 
 XVIII., at the price of five hundred francs each. Though 
 little addicted to liberality, Gros took his pupil to a shop 
 where Joseph got all the necessary materials. But the thou- 
 sand francs were to be paid only on delivery. Joseph set to 
 work and painted four little pictures in ten days; these he 
 sold to the dealers, and brought his mother a thousand francs ; 
 she could meet the bill. A week later, another letter from the 
 Colonel announced to his mother that he was sailing on board 
 a packet, the captain having accepted his promise to pay, 
 Philippe added that he would need at least a thousand francs 
 more on disembarking at le Havre. 
 
 "Well," said Joseph to his mother, "I shall have finished 
 the copies ; you can take him the thousand francs." 
 
 "Dear Joseph!" cried Agathe, embracing him with tears. 
 "Then you really love that poor persecuted boy ? He is our 
 glory and all our hope ! So young, so brave, and so unfortu- 
 nate ! Everything is against him; let us all three at any rate 
 be on his side." 
 
 "Painting is good for something after all, you see," cried 
 Joseph, happy at having at last won his mother's permission 
 to become a great artist. 
 
 Madame Bridau flew to meet her beloved son, Colonel 
 Philippe. At le Havre she walked every day to a point be- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 3T 
 
 yond the round tower built by Francis I., every day imagin- 
 ing fresh and dreadful alarms as she watched for the Ameri- 
 can packet. None but mothers know how this kind of tor- 
 ment revives their first motherhood. The vessel came in one 
 fine morning in October 1819, without damage, without 
 having met the slightest squall. 
 
 The air of his native land, and the sight of his fnother, 
 must always have some effect, even on the coarsest soul, 
 especially after an exile full of disasters. Philippe gave way 
 to an effusiveness of feeling which made Agathe think to her- 
 self, "How much this one loves me !" — Alas ! the young officer 
 loved but one creature in the world, and that was Colonel 
 Philippe. His ill-fortune in Texas, his stay in New York — 
 a place where speculation and self-interest are carried to the 
 highest pitch, where the coarsest selfishness becomes cyni- 
 cism, where each man, living for himself alone, is compelled 
 to tread his own path, where politeness does not 
 exist — in short, the smallest incidents of his expedition had 
 developed in Philippe all the bad tendencies of the disbanded 
 trooper. He was a bully, a drinker, a smoker, assert- 
 ive and rude; penury and privations had deteriorated him. 
 Also, the Colonel considered himself persecuted; the effect 
 of this belief on a man of low intelligence is to make 
 him an intolerant persecutor. To Philippe the whole uni- 
 verse began at his head and ended at his feet ; the sun shone 
 for him alone. To crown all, his experience in New York, 
 interpreted by a man of action, had robbed him of every moral 
 scruple. 
 
 With beings of his stamp there are but two modes of ex- 
 istence : they are believers, or they are unbelievers ; they have 
 all the virtues of an honest man, or they are carried away by 
 every pressure of necessity ; then they get into a habit of re- 
 garding their smallest interests, and every passing wish 
 prompted by passion, as a necessity. On this plan a man may 
 go far. 
 
 In appearance, but in appearance only, the Colonel had 
 preserved the blunt, frank, easy-going manner of a soldier. 
 Thus he was a very dangerous man; he seemed as guileless 
 
38 A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 as a child; but having no one to think of but himself, he never 
 did anything without carefully considering what he had best 
 do, much as a wily prosecutor considers every twist and turn 
 of a tricky rogue. Words cost him nothing, and he would 
 give you as many as you chose to believe. If a man should, 
 unluckily, be so rash as to take exception to the explanations 
 by which he would justify the discrepancies between his con- 
 duct and his speech, the Colonel, who was a first-rate shot, 
 who could challenge the most skilful swordsman, and who had 
 the cool head of a man to whom life is a matter of indifference, 
 was ready to demand satisfaction for the first sharp word. 
 Pending that, he looked like a man so ready for blows as to 
 make compromise impossible. His tall figure had become 
 burly, his face was tanned during his stay in Texas, and he 
 had caught the abrupt speech and peremptory tone of a man 
 who means to be respected in the midst of the populace of 
 New York. 
 
 Such as he was, plainly dressed, and his frame evidently 
 hardened by his recent hard life, Philippe was a hero in his 
 poor mother's eyes ; but he had, in fact, become what the com- 
 mon people plainly describe as "a bad lot." 
 
 Madame Bridau, startled by her darling son's destitute 
 condition, had a complete outfit made for him at le Havre ; as 
 she listened to the tale of his woes, she had not the heart to 
 check his eating, drinking, and amusing himself, as a man 
 was bound to drink and enjoy himself on his return from the 
 Champ d'Asile. 
 
 The occupation of Texas by the remnant of the Grand 
 Army was no doubt a splendid idea ; but it was the men that 
 were found wanting rather than the conditions, since Texas 
 is now a Republican state of great promise. The experiment 
 made under the Eestoration proved emphatically that the 
 interests of the Liberals were purely selfish, and in no sense 
 national ; aiming at power, and at nothing else. Neither the 
 material, the place, the idea, nor the goodwill was lacking, 
 only the money and the support of that hypocritical party; 
 they had vast sums at their disposal, and would give nothing 
 when the reinstatement of an Empire was at stake. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 39 
 
 Housewives of Agatha's stamp have the good sense which 
 enables them to see through such political frauds. The hap- 
 less mother saw the truth as she heard her son's story; for, 
 during his absence, her interest in the exile had led her to 
 listen to the pompous announcements of the Constitutional 
 newspapers, and to watch the vicissitudes of the braggart 
 subscription, which yielded scarcely a hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand francs when five or six millions were needed. The lead- 
 ers of the Liberal party very soon discovered that they were, 
 in fact, doing the job for Louis XVIII. by sending away the 
 glorious remnant of the French army, and they abandoned 
 to their fate the most devoted and ardent enthusiasts, who 
 were the first to go. Agathe never was able to explain to 
 Philippe that he had been the prey of fraud rather than of 
 persecution. In her belief in her idol she accused herself of 
 stupidity, and lamented the disasters of the times which had 
 fallen on Philippe. 
 
 And it was true that, until now, in all his misfortunes he 
 had been less a sinner than a victim to his fine temper and 
 energy, to the Emperor's overthrow, to the duplicity of the 
 Liberals and the vindictiveness of the Bourbons towards the 
 Bonapartists. All through the week they spent at le Havre — 
 a horribly expensive week — she never dared hint that he 
 should become reconciled to the King's Government and call 
 at the War Office ; she had enough to do to get him away from 
 le Havre, where living is very dear, and back to Paris, when 
 she had no money left but Just enough for the journey. Mad- 
 ame Descoings and Joseph, who met them as they alighted 
 from the coach in the yard of the Messageries Eoyales, were 
 shocked at the change in Agathe. 
 
 "Your mother has grown ten years older in two months," 
 said the old lady to Joseph, in the midst of the embracing, 
 while their trunks were taken down. 
 
 "Well, Granny Descoings, and how are you ?" was Philippe's 
 tender greeting to the grocer's widow, whom Joseph afEection- 
 ately addressed as Maman Descoings. 
 
 "We have no money to pay for the cab/' said Agathe 
 piteously. 
 
40 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "But I have," replied the young painter. "My brother 
 is splendidly burnt !" he exclaimed, looking at Philippe. 
 
 "Yes, I am colored like a pipe. But you have not altered, 
 little man." 
 
 Joseph, now one-and-twenty, and much appreciated by a 
 few friends who had stood by him in evil days, felt his 
 powers, and was conscious of his talent. In a little society 
 of young men devoted to science, letters, politics, and philo- 
 sophy, he represented painting; he was hurt by his brother's 
 contemptuous tone, emphasized by an incivility; Philippe 
 pulled his ear as if he were a mere child. Agathe observed 
 the sort of chill which came over Madame Descoings and 
 Joseph after their first affectionate warmth, but she set mat- 
 ters right by speaking of the privations endured by Philippe 
 during his exile. 
 
 Madame Descoings, anxious to make a high day in honor of 
 the return of the prodigal son, as she called him in her own 
 mind, had prepared the best of dinners, to which she had in- 
 vited old Claparon and the elder Desroches. All the friends 
 of the family were invited, and came in the evening. Joseph 
 had asked Leon Giraud, d'Arthez, Michel Chrestien, Fulgence 
 Eidal, and Bianchon, his friends of the coterie. Madame 
 Descoings had told Bixiou — her stepson, as she called him — 
 that the young people would play a game of ecarte. The 
 younger Desroches, sternly forced by his father to become a 
 law-student, also joined the party. Du Bruel, Claparon, Des- 
 roches, and the Abbe Loraux stared at the traveler, frightened 
 by his coarse face and manners, his voice husky with dram- 
 drinking, his vulgar language and looks. While Joseph was 
 setting out the card-tables, her most intimate friends gathered 
 round Agathe and asked her : 
 
 "What do you intend to do with Philippe ?" 
 
 "I do not know," said she. "But he is still determined not 
 to serve under the Bourbons." 
 
 "It is very difficult to find him a place in France. If he 
 will not re-enter the army, he will not easily find a pigeon- 
 hole ready for him in the civil service," said old du Bruel. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 41 
 
 "And only to listen to him is enough to prove that he will 
 never make a fortune, like my son, by writing plays." 
 
 Agatha's glance in reply was enough to make them all un- 
 derstand how anxious she was as to Philippe's prospects ; and 
 as neither of her friends had any suggestions to offer, they all 
 kept silence. The exile, young Desroehes, and Bixiou were 
 playing ecart6, a game that was then the rage. 
 
 "Maman Descoings, my brother has no money to play 
 with," said Joseph, in the kind and staunch old lady's ear. 
 
 The gambler in the lottery went to fetch twenty francs, and 
 gave them to the artist, who quietly slipped them into his 
 brother's hand. 
 
 All the guests arrived. Two tables were set for boston, 
 and the party grew lively. Philippe proved but a sorry 
 player. After winning a good deal at first, he lost, till, by 
 eleven o'clock, he owed fifty francs to young Desroehes and 
 Bixiou. The noise and disputes over the ecarte more than 
 once disturbed the peaceful boston players, and they kept 
 covert watch over Philippe. The Colonel gave evidence of 
 such a bad spirit that, in his last wrangle with young Des- 
 roehes — who was not very good-tempered either — the elder 
 Desroehes, though his son was in the right, pronounced 
 against him, and desired him to play no more. Madame Des- 
 coings did the same with her grandson, who had begun firing 
 such keen witticisms that Philippe did not understand them; 
 still, they might have led this caustic satirist into danger if 
 by chance one of his barbed arrows had pierced the Colonel's 
 dense intelligence. 
 
 "You must be tired," said Agathe to Philippe. "Come to 
 your room." 
 
 "Traveling forms the young !" said Bixiou, smiling, when 
 Agathe and the Colonel were out of the room. 
 
 Joseph, who rose with the dawn and went early to rest, did 
 not see the evening out. Next morning Agathe and her 
 friend, as they laid breakfast in the front room, could not help 
 thinking that evening company would cost them very dear if 
 Philippe went on playing "that game," as Madame Des- 
 
42 A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 coings phrased it. The old woman, now seventy-six years of 
 age, proposed to sell her furniture, to give up her rooms on the 
 second floor to the landlord — who was most willing to have 
 them — to take Agathe's drawing-room for her bedroom, and 
 to use the other room as a sitting and dining-room in one. In 
 this way they could save seven hundred francs a year. This 
 retrenchment would enable them to allow Philippe fifty francs 
 a month while he was looking out for something to do. 
 Agathe accepted the sacrifice. 
 
 When the Colonel came down, after his mother had asked 
 him if he had been comfortable in his little room, the two 
 widows laid the state of affairs before him. Madame Des- 
 eoings and Agathe, by combining their incomes, had five thou- 
 sand three hundred francs a year, of which four thousand 
 were Madame Descoings' annuity. The old lady allowed 
 Bixiou six hundred francs a year — for the last six months 
 she had owned Mm to be her grandson — and six hundred to 
 Joseph; the rest, with Agathe's income, was spent in house- 
 keeping generally. All their savings were gone. 
 
 "Be quite easy," said the Colonel; "I will look out for 
 some appointment. I will cost you nothing. All I want is a 
 crust and a crib for the present." 
 
 Agathe kissed her son, and his old friend slipped a hundred 
 francs into his hand to pay the gambling debt of the evening 
 before. 
 
 Within ten days the sale of the furniture, the giving up of 
 the rooms, and the necessary changes in Agathe's dwelling 
 were affected with the rapidity to be seen only in Paris. Dur- 
 ing these ten days Philippe regularly made himself scarce 
 after breakfast, came in to dinner, went out in the evening, 
 and did not come home to bed till midnight. 
 
 This was the plan of life into which the soldier feU almost 
 mechanically, and which became a rooted habit: he had his 
 boots blacked on the Pont Neuf for the two sous he would 
 otherwise have spent in crossing by the Pont des Arts to the 
 Palais Eoyal, where he took two liqueur glasses of brandy 
 while reading the papers, an occupation absorbing him till 
 
A BAGHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 43 
 
 mid-day; at about noon he made his way by the Eue Vi- 
 vienne to the Cafe Minerve, at that time the headquarters of 
 the Liberals, and there he played billiards with some retired 
 fellow-officers. There, while he won or lost, Philippe always 
 got through three or four more glasses of various spirits, and 
 then smoked ten regie cigars as he wandered and lounged 
 about the streets. In the evening, after smoking a few pipes 
 at the Estaminet Hollandais, he went up to the gambling 
 tables at about ten. The waiter handed him a card and a 
 pin; he consulted certain experienced players as to the state 
 of the run on red or black, and staked ten francs at an op- 
 portune moment, never playing more than three times, whether 
 he won or lost. When he had won, as he commonly did, 
 he drank a tumbler of punch and made his way home to his 
 attic; but by this time he would be talking of smashing up 
 the ultras and the bodyguard, and sing on the stairs, "Preserve 
 the Empire from its foes." — His poor mother, as she heard 
 him, would say, "Philippe is in good spirits this evening," 
 and she would go up to give him a kiss, never complaining 
 of the reek of punch, spirits, and tobacco. 
 
 "You ought to be pleased with me, my dear mother," said 
 he one day towards the end of January. "I am sure I lead the 
 most regular life !" 
 
 Philippe had dined out five times with some old comrades. 
 These soldiers had talked over the state of their affairs, and 
 discussed the hopes they founded on the building of a sub- 
 marine vessel to be employed to deliver the Emperor. Among 
 the fellow-officers he here met again, Philippe was particu- 
 larly thick with a former captain of the Dragoon Guard 
 named Giroudeau, in whose company he had first smelt gun- 
 powder. This officer of Dragoons was the cause of Philippe's 
 completing what Eabelais calls the devil's outfit, and adding 
 a fourth iniquity to his dram, his cigar, and his gambling. 
 
 One evening, at the beginning of February, Giroudeau took 
 Philippe after dinner to the GaiU Theatre, to a box sent to 
 a small theatrical paper belonging to his nephew Finot, for 
 
44 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 whom the old soldier kept the cash-box and the accounts, ad- 
 dressed and checked the papers. Dressed after the fashion 
 of the Bonapartist ofBeers of the Constitutional opposition, in 
 loose, long coats with a square collar buttoned up to the chin, 
 hanging to their heels, and decorated with the rosette, armed 
 with a loaded cane hanging to the wrist by a plaited leather 
 cord, the two troopers had treated themselves to a skinful, as 
 they expressed it, and opened their hearts to each other as 
 they went into the box. Through the haze of a considerable 
 number of bottles of wine and "nips" of sundry liqueurs, 
 Giroudeau pointed out to Philippe a plump and nimble little 
 damsel on the stage, known as Florentine, whose favors and 
 affections, as well as the box, were his through the all-pow- 
 erful influence of the paper. 
 
 "But, dear me," said Philippe, "how far does she carry her 
 favors for an old dappled-gray trooper like you ?" 
 
 "Praise the Lord, I have never forgotten the old principles 
 of our glorious uniform !" said Giroudeau. "I never spent 
 two farthings on a woman." 
 
 "What next ?" cried Philippe, with a finger to his left eye. 
 
 "Quite true," said Giroudeau. "But, between ourselves, 
 the paper has something to do with it. To-morrow you will 
 see, in two lines, the management will be advised to give 
 Mademoiselle Plorentine a pas seul. — On my word, my dear 
 boy, I am very happy," said Giroudeau. 
 
 "Well," thought PMlippe, "if this venerable Giroudeau, in 
 spite of a skull as bare as your knee, his eight-and-forty years, 
 his corporation, his face like a wine-grower, and his nose like 
 a potato, can be sweetheart to a dancer, I ought to be the man 
 for the first actress in Paris. — Where are such articles to be 
 had ?" he asked Giroudeau. 
 
 "I will take you this evening to see Florentine's humble 
 home. Though my Dulcinea gets but fifty francs a month 
 from the theatre, thanks to a retired silk mercer named 
 Cardot, who allows her five hundred francs a month, she is not 
 so badly set up." 
 
 "Why — what ?" said Philippe, jealous. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 45 
 
 "Pooh !" said Giroudeau. "True love is blind." 
 
 After the play Giroudeau took Philippe to see Mademoi- 
 selle Florentine, who lived in the Rue de Crussol, a stone's- 
 throw from the theatre. 
 
 "We must behave," said Giroudeau; "Florentine has her 
 mother with her. As you may suppose, I cannot afford to 
 allow her one, and the good woman really is her mother. The 
 woman was a doorkeeper, but she does not lack brains, and 
 her name is Cabirolle. Call her madame; she is particular 
 about that." 
 
 Florentine had at her house that evening a friend of hers, 
 a certain Marie Godesehal, as lovely as an angel, as cold as a 
 ballet-dancer, and a pupil of Vestris, who promised her the 
 highest Terpsichorean distinctions. Mademoiselle Godesehal, 
 who was anxious to come out at the Panorama-dramatique, 
 under the name of Mariette, counted on the patronage of a 
 First Groom of the Chambers, to whom Vestris had long 
 promised to present her. Vestris, as yet still in full vigor, 
 did not think his pupil sufficiently advanced. Marie Gode- 
 sehal was ambitious, and she made her assumed name of 
 Mariette famous; but her ambition was praiseworthy. She 
 had a brother, a clerk in Derville the lawyer's office. Orphans 
 and poor, but loving each other truly, the brother and sister 
 had seen life as it is in Paris ; he wished to become an attorney 
 so as to provide for his sister; she determined in cold blood 
 to be a dancer, and to avail herself of her beauty as well 
 as of her nimble legs to buy a connection for her brother. 
 Apart from their affection for each other, from their interests 
 and their life together, everything else was to them, as to the 
 ancient Romans and the Hebrews, barbarian, foreign, and 
 inimical. This beautiful affection, which nothing could ever 
 change, explained Mariette's life to those who knew her well. 
 
 The brother and sister lived at this time on the eighth floor 
 of a house in the Vieille Rue du Temple. Mariette had begun 
 learning at the age of ten, and had now seen sixteen summers. 
 Alas ! for lack of a little dress her dainty beauty, hidden under 
 an Angola shawl, perched on iron pattens, dressed in cotton 
 
46 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 print, and only moderately neat, could never be suspected by 
 any one but the Paris lounger in pursuit of grisettes and on 
 the track of beauty under a cloud. 
 
 Philippe fell in love with Mariette. What Mariette found 
 in Philippe was an officer of the Dragoon Guards and of the 
 Emperor's staff, a young man of seven-and-twenty, and the 
 delight of proving herself superior to Florentine by the evi- 
 dent superiority of Philippe to Giroudeau. Both Florentine 
 and Giroudeau — he to give his comrade pleasure, and she 
 to procure a protector for her friend — urged Mariette and 
 Philippe to a "water-color marriage." The Parisian expres- 
 sion a la detrempe is equivalent to the words "morgantic mar- 
 riage" applied to kings and queens. 
 
 Philippe, as they went out, explained to Giroudeau how 
 poor he was. 
 
 "I will mention you to my nephew, Finot," said Giroudeau. 
 "Look here, Philippe, this is the day of black coats and fine 
 words ; we must knock under. The inkstand is all powerful 
 now. Ink takes the place of gunpowder, and words are used in- 
 stead of shot. After all, these little vermin of editors are very 
 ingenious, and not bad fellows. Come to see me to-morrow at 
 the office; by that time I will have spoken two words about 
 you to my nephew. Before long you will have something to 
 do on some newspaper. Mariette, who will have you now be- 
 cause she has nothing else — make no mistake on that point — 
 no engagement, no hope of coming out, and whom I told that, 
 like me, you were going in for journalism — Mariette will 
 prove that she loves you for yourself, and you will believe her ! 
 Do as I do ; keep her from rising as long as you can. I was 
 so desperately in love that as soon as Florentine wanted to 
 dance a pas seul, I begged Finot to write her up ; but says my 
 nephew to me, 'She is clever, is she not? Well, the day she 
 first dances a step of her own she will show you across the 
 doorstep.' That's Finot all over. Oh, you will find him a 
 wide-awake chap." 
 
 Next day, at about four o'clock, Philippe made his way to 
 the Eue du Sentier, and up to a small room on the entresol, 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 47 
 
 where he found Giroudeau shut up like a wild beast in a sort 
 of hen-coop with a wicket ; it contained a little stove, a little 
 table, two little chairs, and some little billets for the fire. The 
 whole apparatus was dignified by these magical words, O^ce 
 for Subscribers, painted on the outside door in black letters, 
 and the word Cashier in running hand on a board hung on the 
 bars of the cage. Along the wall opposite the old trooper's 
 coop was a bench, on which an old soldier was eating a snack ; 
 he had lost an arm, and Giroudeau addressed him as Colo- 
 quinte (Coloeynth), by reason, no doubt, of the Egyptian hue 
 of his face. 
 
 "Sweetly pretty !" said Philippe, looking about him. "What 
 business have you here — ^you who rode in poor Colonel 
 Chabert's charge at Eylau? In the devil's name! In aU 
 the devils' names ! A superior officer . . ." 
 
 "Why, yes ! Eoo-ty too-too ! A superior officer signing 
 receipts in a newspaper office," said Giroudeau, settling his 
 black silk skull-cap. "And what is more, I am the respon- 
 sible editor of that rhodomontade," and he pointed to the 
 paper. 
 
 "And I, who once went to Egypt, now go to the Stamp 
 Office," said the pensioner. 
 
 "Silence, Coloquinte," said Giroudeau. "You are in the 
 presence of a brave man who carried the Emperor's orders at 
 the battle of Montmirail!" 
 
 "Pre-sent arms!" cried Coloquinte. "I lost my missing 
 arm there." 
 
 "Coloquinte, mind the shop; I am going upstairs to my 
 nephew." 
 
 The two soldiers went up to the fourth floor, to an attic at 
 the end of a passage, and found a young man with cold, color- 
 less eyes stretched on a shabby sofa. The civilian did not 
 disturb himself, though he offered cigars to his uncle and his 
 uncle's friend. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Giroudeau, in a meek and gentle 
 voice, "here is the valiant Major of whom I spoke." 
 
 "What then?" said Finot, looking Philippe from head to 
 
48 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 foot, while the officer lost all his spirit, like Giroudeau, in the 
 presence of the diplomate of the press. 
 
 "My dear boy," said Giroudeau, trying to play the uncle, 
 "the Colonel has just come from Texas." 
 
 "Oh! you were caught for Texas and the Champ d'Asile? 
 You were very young, too, to turn soldier-ploughman." 
 
 The sting of this witticism can be appreciated only by those 
 who can remember the flood of prints, screens, clocks, bronzes, 
 and casts to which the idea of the soldier-ploughman gave rise, 
 as a great allegory of the fate of Napoleon and his veterans, 
 which at last found vent in various satirical songs. The idea 
 was worth a million at least; you may still see the soldier- 
 ploughman on wall-papers in the depths of the provinces. 
 
 If this young man had not been Giroudeau's nephew, 
 Philippe would have smacked his cheeks. 
 
 "Yes, I was caught for it ; and I lost twelve thousand francs 
 and my time," replied he, trying to force a smile. 
 
 "And you still love the Emperor ?" 
 > "He is my God !" replied Philippe Bridau. 
 
 "You are a Liberal?" 
 
 "I shall always side with the Constitutional Opposition. 
 Oh, Foy ! Manuel ! Laffitte ! There are men for you. 
 They will rid us of these wretches who have sneaked in at the 
 heels of the foreigners." 
 
 "Well, then," said Knot coldly, "you must take the benefit 
 of your misfortunes, for you are a victim to the Liberals, my 
 good fellow. Eemain a Liberal if you are set on your opin- 
 ions; but threaten the Liberals with divulging the madness 
 of the Texas scheme. You never got a farthing of the 
 national subscription, I suppose? Well, then, you are in a 
 splendid position : ask for the accounts of the fund. This is 
 what will happen: A fresh newspaper is now being started 
 by the Opposition under the auspices of the deputies of the 
 Left; you will be made cashier with a thousand crowns a 
 year, a place for life. You have only to find twenty thou- 
 sand francs as security; get them, and in a week you will 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 49 
 
 have a berth. I will advise them to silence you by making 
 them offer you the place — but cry out, and cry loud !" 
 
 Giroudeau allowed Philippe to go down a few steps before 
 him, pouring out thanks as he went, and said to his nephew : 
 "Well, you are a pretty fellow, you are ! You let me hang 
 on here with twelve hundred francs a year " 
 
 "The paper will not live a year," replied Finot. "I have 
 something better for you." 
 
 "By heaven !" said Philippe to Giroudeau, "that nephew of 
 yours is no fool. I had never thought of taking the benefit of 
 my position, as he puts it." 
 
 That evening, at the Cafe Lemblin and the Cafe Minerve, 
 Colonel Philippe broke out iu abuse of the Liberals who sent 
 a man to Texas, who talked gammon about the soldier-plough- 
 man, who left brave men to starve in misery after squeezing 
 twenty thousand francs out of them, and driving them for 
 two years from pillar to post. 
 
 "I mean to ask for an account of the money subscribed for 
 the Champ d'Asile," he said to one of the regular customers 
 at the Cafe Minerve, who repeated it to the journalists of the 
 Left. 
 
 Philippe did not go home to the Eue Mazarine; he went 
 to tell Mariette that he was about to be employed on a paper 
 with ten thousand subscribers, in which her Terpsiehorean 
 ambitions should be ardently supported. Agathe and Mad- 
 ame Descoings sat up for him in an agony of terror, for the 
 Due de Berry had that moment been assassinated. 
 
 The Colonel walked in next day, a few minutes after break- 
 fast. When his mother expressed uneasiness at his absence, 
 he flew into a passion, and asked if he were of age or no. 
 
 "By heaven ! I come in with good news, and you all look as 
 solemn as hearses. The Due de Berry is dead! Well, so 
 much the better ! There is one less of them.— I am going to 
 be cashier of a newspaper office, with a thousand crowns a 
 year, so you are free from all worry so far as I am concerned." 
 
 "Is it possible?" cried Agathe. 
 
 "Yes, if you can stand surety for twenty thousand francs. 
 
 4 
 
50 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 You have only to deposit your securities for thirteen hundred 
 francs a year, and you will draw your half-yearly dividends 
 all the same." 
 
 The two widows, who for two months past had been killing 
 themselves with wondering what Philippe was doing, and how 
 to find him employment, were so delighted at his prospects 
 that they thought no more of the various difficulties of the 
 hour. In the evening old du Bruel, Claparon, who was a 
 dying man, and the inflexible Desroches senior — ^the three 
 Sages of Greece — were unanimous. They advised the widow 
 to stand surety for her son. The paper having been started, 
 most fortunately, before the murder of the Due de Berry, 
 escaped the blow struck at the press by M. Decaze. The 
 widow Bridau's State securities for thirteen hundred francs 
 of dividends were deposited as a pledge for Philippe, and he 
 was appointed cashier. This good son then promised to pay 
 the widows a hundred francs a month for his board and lodg- 
 ing, and was regarded as the best of good boys. Those who 
 had thought ill of him congratulated Agathe. 
 
 ''We judged him wrongly," they said. 
 
 Poor Joseph, not to be left in the lurch, tried to keep him- 
 self, and succeeded. 
 
 At the end of three months, the Colonel — ^who ate and 
 drank for four, who was very particular, and, under the pre- 
 text of his paying, led the two widows into expensive living — 
 had not contributed a farthing. Neither his mother nor 
 Madame Deseoings would remind him of his promise, out of 
 delicate feeling. The year went by, and not one of the crown 
 pieces, which Leon Gozlan picturesquely calls a tiger with five 
 claws, had passed from Philippe's pocket to the housekeeping. 
 On this point, to be sure, the Colonel had silenced his scruples 
 of conscience : he rarely dined at home. 
 
 "And, after all, he is happy," said his mother. "He is easy, 
 he has an appointment." 
 
 Through the influence of the theatrical articles, written by 
 Vernou, a friend of Bixiou's, of Finot's, and Giroudeau's, 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 51 
 
 Mariette came out; not indeed at the Panorama-dramatique, 
 but at the Porte Saint-Martin, where she was a success even 
 by the side of Begrand. Among the directors of that theatre 
 there was just then a wealthy and luxurious general, who, 
 being in love with an actress, had become an impresario for 
 her sake. There are always in Paris men in love with some 
 actress, dancer, or singer, who make themselves theatrical 
 managers for love's sake. This general knew Philippe and 
 Griroudeau. By the help of the two newspapers, Pinot's and 
 Philippe's, Mariette's debut was arranged by the three officers, 
 with all the greater ease because, as it would seem, such 
 passions are always reciprocally helpful in matters of folly. 
 
 Bixiou, ever mischievous, had soon told his grandmother 
 and the pious Agathe that Philippe the cashier, the bravest 
 of the brave, was the lover of Mariette the famous dancer at 
 • the Porte Saint-Martin. The stale news fell like a thunder- 
 clap on the two widows. In the first place, Agathe's religious 
 sentiments made her look on the women of the stage as brands 
 of hell, and then they both believed that such women ate gold, 
 drank pearls, and devoured the finest fortunes. 
 
 "Why!" said Joseph to his mother, "do you suppose that 
 Philippe would be such a fool as to give any money to 
 Mariette ? Such women only ruin rich men." 
 
 "There is a talk already of securing Mariette at the Opera- 
 house," said Bixiou. "But don't be alarmed, Madame 
 Bridau; the corps diplomatique haunts the Porte Saint- 
 Martin, and that handsome girl will soon throw over your son. 
 They say there is an ambassador who is desperately in love 
 with Mariette. — There is some other news. Old Claparon is 
 dead, and is to be buried to-morrow; and his son, who is a 
 banker, and rolling in gold and silver, has ordered a third- 
 class funeral. The fellow has no breeding. Such a thing 
 could not happen in China !" 
 
 Philippe, with an eye to profit, proposed to marry the 
 dancer ; but being on the eve of an engagement at the Opera, 
 Mademoiselle Godeschal refused him, either because she 
 guessed the Colonel's motive, or because she understood that 
 independence was necessary to her fortunes. 
 
52 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Throughout the remainder of this year Philippe came to 
 see his mother twice a month at most. "Where was he? At 
 his office, at the theatre, or with Mariette. Ko light was shed 
 on his proceedings in the home in the Eue Mazarine. 
 
 Griroudeau, Finot, Bixiou, Vernou, and Lousteau saw him 
 leading a life of pleasure. Philippe was at every party given 
 by Tullia, one of the first singers at the Opera; by Florentine, 
 who took Mariette's place at the Porte Saint-Martin; by 
 Florine and Matifat, Coralie and Camusot. Prom four 
 o'clock, when he left his office, he amused himself till mid- 
 night; for there was always some ploy arranged the day be- 
 fore, a good dinner given by somebody, an evening at cards, 
 or a supper-party. Philippe lived in his element. 
 
 But this carnival, which lasted for eighteen months, was 
 not devoid of cares. The fair Mariette on her debut at the 
 Opera, in January 1821, subjugated one of the most brilliant' 
 dukes of Louis XVIII.'s court. Philippe tried to hold his 
 own against the duke; but, notwithstanding some luck at the 
 gaming-table, as the month of April came round his passion 
 compelled him to borrow from the cash-box of the newspaper. 
 In the month of May he owed eleven thousand francs. In 
 the course of that fatal month Mariette went to London, 
 to make what she might out of the milords, while the 
 temporary Opera-house was being built in the Eue le Pel- 
 letier. Philippe the ill-starred still loved Mariette in spite 
 of her flagrant infidelities — such things happen; she, on her 
 part, had never seen anything in him but a rough and brain- 
 less soldier, the first rung of the ladder, on which she did not 
 mean to stay long. Also, as she had foreseen the day when 
 Philippe would have no more money, the dancer had been 
 clever enough to secure supporters among journalists, which 
 made it unnecessary for her to cling to Philippe ; still, she felt 
 the gratitude peculiar to women of her stamp to the man who 
 had been the first to level the obstacles in the dreadful career 
 of an actress. 
 
 Philippe, thus obliged to let his terrible mistress go to 
 London without being able to follow her, returned to his 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 53 
 
 ■winter quarters, to use his own expression, and came home to 
 his attic in the Rue Mazarine; there he made many gloomy 
 reflections as he went to bed and got up again. He felt it 
 impossible to live otherwise than as he had been living for 
 this year past. The luxury of Mariette's life, the dinners 
 and suppers, the evenings spent behind the scenes, the high 
 spirits of wits and journalists, the turmoil he had lived in, 
 and all the flattering effect on his senses and on his vanity, — 
 this existence, which is to be found only in Paris, and -which 
 offers some new sensation every day, had become more than a 
 habit to Philippe ; it was a necessity, like tobacco and drams. 
 Indeed, he plainly perceived that he could not live without 
 this constant enjoyment. 
 
 The idea of suicide passed through his mind, not on account 
 of the deficit which would be discovered in his balance, but by 
 reason of the impossibility of being with Mariette and living 
 in the atmosphere of pleasures in which he had wallowed 
 for the last twelvemonth. Full of these gloomy notions, he 
 made his appearance, for the first time, in his brother's studio, 
 and found Joseph at work, in a blue blouse, copying a picture 
 for a dealer. 
 
 "So that is the way pictures are made ?" said Philippe as an 
 opening. 
 
 "No," said Joseph, "but that is the way they are copied." 
 
 "How much do you get for that ?" 
 
 "Oh, never enough. Two hundred and fifty francs ; but I 
 study the master's method ; I learn by it, I find out the secrets 
 of the trade. — There is one of my pictures," he went on, 
 pointing with the handle of his brush to a sketch of which the 
 paint was still wet. 
 
 "And how much a year do you pocket now?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, I am as yet unknown excepting to the 
 painters. Schinner is giving me a helping hand ; he is to get 
 me some work at the chateau de Presles, where I am going in 
 October to paint some arabesques and borders and ornaments 
 for the Comte de Serizy, who pays very well. With pot- 
 boilers like this, dealers' orders, I may make eighteen hundred 
 
54 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 to two thousand francs before long, all clear profit. But I 
 shall send that picture in to the next exhibition; if it is liked, 
 I am a made man. My friends think well of it." 
 
 "I am no judge," said Philippe in a quiet tone, which made 
 Joseph look up at him. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he asked, seeing his brother look 
 pale. 
 
 "I want to know how long it would take you to paint my 
 portrait." 
 
 "Well, if I worked at nothing else, and the light were good, 
 I could do it in three or four days." 
 
 "That is too long. I can only give you a day. My poor 
 mother is so fond of me that I should wish to leave her my 
 likeness. But say no more about it." 
 
 "Why, are you going away again?" 
 
 "Going, never to return," said Philippe, with affected cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 "Come, Philippe, my dear fellow, what ails you? If it is 
 anything serious, I am a man, and I am not a simpleton. I 
 am preparing for a hard struggle, and if discretion is needed 
 I can hold my tongue." 
 
 "Can I rely upon it?" 
 
 "On my honor." 
 
 "You will never say a word to any living being ?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Well, then, I am going to blow my brains out." 
 
 "What, are you going to fight a duel ?" 
 
 "I am going to kill myself." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I have taken eleven thousand francs out of the cash-box, 
 and I must give in my accounts to-morrow; my deposit- 
 money will be diminished by half; my poor mother will be 
 reduced to six hundred francs a year. That, after all, is 
 nothing; I might be able later to give her back a fortune. 
 But I am disgraced ; I will not live disgraced." 
 
 'TTou will not be disgraced if you pay; but you will lose 
 your place; you will have nothing left but the five hundred 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT B5 
 
 francs pension attached to your Cross. Still, you can live 
 on five hundred francs." 
 
 "Good-bye," cried Philippe, who hurried downstairs, and 
 would not listen. 
 
 Joseph left his work, and went down to join his mother 
 at breakfast; but Philippe's confession had spoiled his appe- 
 tite. He took Madame Descoings aside, and told her the 
 dreadful news. The old woman gave a loud cry of dismay, 
 dropped a pipkin full of milk that she had in her hand, and 
 sank on to a chair. Agathe hurried in. With one exclama- 
 tion and another, the fatal facts were told to the mother. 
 
 "He ? To fail in honesty ! Bridau's son has taken money 
 that was entrusted to his keeping !" 
 
 The widow was trembling in every limb ; her eyes seemed to 
 grow larger in a fixed stare; she sat down, and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "Where is he ?" she cried between her sobs. "Perhaps he 
 has thrown himself into the Seine !" 
 
 "You must not despair," said Madame Descoings, "because 
 the poor boy has come in the way of a bad woman, and she 
 made a fool of him. Dear me ; that often happens ! Until 
 he came home Philippe had been so constantly unlucky, he 
 had so few chances of being happy and loved, that we need 
 not wonder at his passion for this creature. All passions 
 lead to excess. I have something of the kind in my life for 
 which I blame myself, and yet I think myself an honest 
 woman. One fault does not constitute a vice ! Besides, after 
 all, only those who do nothing at all never make any mis- 
 takes." 
 
 Agathe was so overwhelmed by despair that the old lady 
 and Joseph were obliged to make light of Philippe's crime by 
 telling her that such things occur in every family. 
 
 "But he is eight-and-twenty," cried Agathe; "he is no 
 longer a child!" a cry of anguish betraying what the poor 
 woman thought of her son's conduct. 
 
 "I assure you, mother, that he thinks of nothing but your 
 grief and the wrong he has done," said Joseph. 
 
56 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Oh, great God ! Bring him back. Only let him live, and 
 I will forgive him all !" cried the poor mother, who in fancy 
 beheld a horrible picture of Philippe dragged dead out of the 
 river. 
 
 For some minutes awful silence reigned. The day was 
 spent in dreadful suspense. All three flew to the sitting- 
 room window at the least noise, and gave themselves up to 
 1 endless conjectures. 
 
 While his family were in this despair, Philippe was calmly 
 setting everything in order in his office. He had the impu- 
 dence to hand in his accounts, saying that, for fear of mis- 
 chance, he had kept eleven thousand francs at his lodgings. 
 The rascal left at four o'clock, taking five hundred francs 
 more from the cash-box, and coolly went up to the gambling 
 tables, where he had not been seen since his appointment, for 
 he had at least understood that a cashier must not frequent 
 a gambling hell. His subsequent conduct will show that he 
 resembled his grandfather Rouget rather than his admirable 
 father. He might perhaps have made a good general ; but in 
 private life he was one of those deep-dyed scoundrels who 
 shelter their audacity and their evil deeds behind the screen 
 of strict legality, and under the reticence of the family roof. 
 
 Philippe was perfectly calm during this critical venture. 
 At first he won, and picked up as much as six thousand 
 francs; but he let himself be dazzled by the hope of ending 
 his anxieties at one stroke. He left the game of trente-et- 
 quarante on hearing that at the roulette table there had been 
 a run of sixteen on the black ; he staked five thousand francs 
 on the red, and black turned up again for the seventeenth 
 time. The Colonel then staked his remaining thousand 
 francs on the black, and won. Notwithstanding this aston- 
 ishing intuition of the chances, his head was not clear; he 
 felt this, and yet he would go on ; but the spirit of divination 
 which guides players, enlightening them by flashes, was 
 already exhausted. It was now intermittent — ^the gamester's 
 ruin. Intuition, like the rays of the sun, acts only in an in- 
 flexibly straight line; it can guess right only on condition 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 5T 
 
 of never diverting its gaze; the freaks of chance disturb it. 
 Philippe lost everything. After so severe an ordeal the most 
 reckless spirit or the boldest must collapse. 
 
 As he went home Philippe thought the less of his promise 
 to kill himself, because he had never really meant it. He 
 had forgotten his lost appointment, his impaired deposit- 
 money, his mother, and Mariette — the cause of his ruin; he 
 walked on mechanically. When he went in, his mother, 
 bathed in tears, Madame Descoings, and Joseph threw their 
 arms round his neck, hugged him, and led him with rejoicing 
 to a seat by the fire. 
 
 "Good!" thought he; "the announcement has had its 
 effect." 
 
 The wretch put on an appropriately dolorous face, with all 
 the more ease because his evening's play had considerably 
 upset him. On seeing her atrocious Benjamin pale and 
 dejected, his mother knelt down by him, kissing his hands, 
 pressing them to her heart, and looking long in his face with 
 her eyes full of tears. 
 
 "Philippe," she said in a choked voice, "promise not to 
 kill yourself ; we will forget everything." 
 
 Philippe looked at his unnerved brother, at Madame Des- 
 coings with a tear in her eye, and he said to himself, "They 
 are good souls!" Then he lifted up his mother, seated her 
 on his knee, clasped her to his heart, and whispered as he 
 kissed her, "You have given me new life !" 
 
 Madame Descoings contrived to produce a very good dinner, 
 adding a couple of bottles of old wine and a little West Indian 
 liqueur, a treasure remaining from her former stock-in-trade. 
 
 "Agathe, we must let him smoke his cigars," said she at 
 dessert. And she handed Philippe some cigars. 
 
 The two poor souls believed that by giving this fellow every 
 comfort he would learn to love his home and stay there, and 
 they tried to accustom themselves to tobacco smoke, which 
 they abominated. This immense sacrifice was not even sus- 
 pected by Philippe. 
 
58 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Next day Agathe had aged by ten years. Her alarms once 
 relieved, reflection followed, and the poor woman had not 
 closed an eye throughout that dreadful night. She was now 
 reduced to an income of siz hundred francs. Madame Des- 
 coings, like all fat women who love good eating, had an 
 obstinate catarrh and cough, and was growing heavy ; her step 
 on the stairs sounded like a pavior's hammer; she might die 
 at a moment's notice, and four thousand francs would perish 
 with her. Was it not preposterous to count on that source of 
 supply ? What was to be done ? What would become of her ? 
 Agathe, resolved to be a sick-nurse rather than to be a burden 
 on her children, was not thinking of herself. But what 
 would Philippe do, reduced to his five hundred francs of pen- 
 sion attached to the Cross of the Legion of Honor? 
 
 By contributing a thousand crowns a year for the last 
 eleven years, Madame Descoings had more than twice repaid 
 her debt, and she was still sacrificing her grandson's interests 
 to those of the Bridau family. Agathe, though all her strict 
 and honest sentiments were outraged, in the midst of this 
 dire disaster still could ask herself as she thought of her son, 
 "Poor boy, could he help it? He is faithful to his oath as 
 a soldier. It is my fault for not getting him married. If I 
 had found him a wife, he would not have formed a connection 
 with this dancer. He had such a strong nature !" . . . 
 
 The old tradeswoman, too, had reflected during the night 
 as to the means of saving the honor of the family. At day- 
 break she got out of bed, and crept to her friend's room. 
 
 "It is not your part, nor Philippe's, to manage this delicate 
 matter," said she. "Though our two old friends, Claparon 
 and du Bruel, are dead, we still have old Monsieur Desroches, 
 who has good judgment, and I will go to him this morning. 
 Desroches must report that Philippe has been the victim of 
 his confidence in a friend, and that his weakness in such 
 cases quite unfits him for the post of cashier. What has 
 happened once may happen again : Philippe prefers to retire, 
 thus he will not be dismissed." 
 
 Agathe, seeing in this official lie a cloak for Philippe's 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT B9 
 
 honor, at any rate in the eyes of strangers, embraced the old 
 lady, who went out to settle the dreadful business. Philippe 
 had slept the sleep of the just. 
 
 "She is a sharp one !" said he with a smile, when Agathe 
 explained to her son why breakfast was late. 
 
 Old Desroches, the last friend left to those two poor women, 
 still remembered, in spite of his hard nature, that it was 
 Bridau who had given him his place, and he executed the 
 delicate task proposed to him with the skill of an accomplished 
 diplomate. He came to dine with the family, and to remind 
 Agathe that she must go on the morrow to the Treasury in 
 the Eue Vivienne to sign the transfer of the securities to be 
 sold, and take out the coupons for six hundred francs, her 
 remaining dividends. The old man did not leave this hapless 
 household till he had obtained Philippe's signature to a 
 petition to the Minister of War begging to be reinstated in 
 active service. Desroches pledged his word to the two women 
 that he would forward the petition through the departments 
 of the War Office, and take advantage of the Duke's triumph 
 over Philippe with the dancer to secure that great man's in- 
 terest. 
 
 "Within three months he will be lieutenant-colonel in the 
 Due de Maufrigneuse's regiment, and you will be rid of him." 
 
 Desroches went home loaded with blessings by the two 
 women and Joseph. 
 
 As to the newspaper, as Finot had prophesied, two months 
 later it had ceased to appear. Thus, to the world, Philippe's 
 defalcation had no results. But Agathe's motherly feeling 
 had been deeply wounded. Her belief in her son once shaken, 
 she lived in perpetual terrors, mitigated by satisfaction when 
 she found that her sinister anticipations were unfounded. 
 
 When men like Philippe, gifted with personal courage, but 
 moral cowards and sneaks, see the course of affairs around 
 them following its usual channel after a plunge in which their 
 moral status has almost perished, this acceptance of the situa- 
 tion by their family or friends is an encouragement. They 
 are sure of impunity; their perverted mind, their gratified 
 
60 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 passions, lead them to consider how they succeeded in evading 
 the social law, and they become atrociously clever. Thus, a 
 fortnight after, Philippe, once more an idle man and a 
 lounger, inevitably returned to the life of cafes, to his sittings 
 relieved by drams, his long games of billiards with punch, 
 his nightly visit to the gaming-tables, where he risked a 
 small stake at a lucky moment, and pocketed such little 
 winnings as sufficed to pay for his dissipations. He made a 
 display of economy to deceive his mother and her friend, 
 wore an almost filthy hat, hairless at the edges of the crown 
 and brim, patched boots, a threadbare greatcoat, on which the 
 red rosette scarcely showed, so darkened was it by long wear 
 and soiled with splashes of spirits or of cofEee. His greenish 
 buckskin gloves lasted a long time, and he never cast off his 
 satin stock till it looked like tow. 
 
 Mariette was this man's only love, and the dancer's faith- 
 lessness did much to harden his heart. ISTow and then, when 
 he won more than he expected, or if he were supping with his 
 friend Giroudeau, Philippe would court a Venus of the 
 street, out of a sort of brutal scorn for all her sex. Still, he 
 kept regular hours, breakfasted and dined at home, and came 
 in every night at about one. Three months of this wretched 
 life restored Agathe to some little confidence. 
 
 As for Joseph, who was at work on the splendid picture to 
 which he owed his reputation, he lived in his studio. On 
 the word of her grandson, who firmly believed in Joseph's 
 triumph,, Madame Descoings lavished maternal care on the 
 painter ; she carried up his breakfast in the morning, ran his 
 errands, blacked his boots. The artist never appeared till 
 dinner-time, and gave his evenings to his friends of the 
 Artistic Society. He also read a great deal; he was giving 
 himself the thorough and serious education which a man gets 
 only from himself, and which every man of talent does, in 
 fact, give himself between the ages of twenty and thirty. 
 Agathe, seeing so little of Joseph, and feeling no uneasiness 
 about him, lived in Philippe only, since he alone gave her 
 those alternations of rising fears and terrors allayed which 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 61 
 
 are, to a certain extent, the very life of feeling, and as 
 necessary to motherhood as love is. 
 
 Desroches, who came about once a week to call on the 
 widow of his old friend and chief, could give her hopes : the 
 Due de Maufrigneuse had applied for Philippe to be ap- 
 pointed to his regiment, the War Minister had asked for a 
 report ; and as the name of Bridau was not to be found on any 
 police-list or in any criminal trial, in the early part of the 
 year Philippe would get his papers and orders to join. To 
 succeed in this matter, Desroches had stirred up all his ac- 
 quaintances; his inquiries at the head-office of the police led 
 to his hearing that Philippe was to be seen every night in the 
 gaming-houses; and he thought it wise to communicate the 
 secret to Madame Descoings, but to her alone, begging her to 
 keep an eye on the future lieutenant-colonel, to whom any 
 scandal might be ruin; for the moment, the War Minister 
 would not be likely to ask whether Philippe were a gambler. 
 And once enrolled under the regimental flag, the officer would 
 give up a passion that was the result of want of occupation. 
 
 Agathe, who now had no company in the evening, read her 
 prayers by the fire; while Madame Descoings read her for- 
 tune by the cards, interpreting her dreams, and applying the 
 rules of the Cabala to her stakes. The lighthearted and 
 obstinate old woman never missed a drawing of lottery- 
 tickets ; she still staked on the same three numbers which had 
 never yet been drawn. This set of numbers was now nearly 
 twenty-one years old — it would soon be of age. Its holder 
 based high hopes on this trivial fact. One of the numbers 
 had never come out at any drawing of either of the wheels 
 ever since the lottery was founded, so she stalced heavily on 
 this number, and on every combination of the three figures. 
 The bottom mattress of her bed was the hiding-place for the 
 poor old creature's savings ; she unsewed it, pushed in the gold 
 piece she had saved on her necessities, neatly wrapped in 
 wool, and sewed it up again. She was resolved, at the last 
 Paris drawing, to risk all her savings on the combinations of 
 her cherished three numbers. 
 
62 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 This passion, universally condemned, has never been duly- 
 studied. No one has understood this opium to poverty. 
 Did not the lottery, the most puissant fairy in the world, give 
 rise of magical hopes? The turn at roulette, which gives 
 the player a vision of limitless gold and enjoyments, only 
 lasted as long as a lightning flash ; while the lottery gave five 
 days of life to that glorious gleam. What social power can, 
 in these days, make you happy for five days-, and bestow on 
 you in fancy all the delights of civilized life — for forty sous ? 
 Tobacco, a mania a thousand times more mischievous than 
 gambling, destroys the body, undermines the intellect, 
 stupefies the nation ; the lottery caused no misfortunes of that 
 kind. The passion was compelled to moderation by the in- 
 terval between the drawings, and by the particular wheel 
 the ticket-holder might affect. Madame Descoings never 
 staked on any but the Paris wheel. In the hope of seeing 
 the three numbers drawn which she had kept in hand for 
 twenty years, she had subjected herself to the greatest priva- 
 tions to enable her to stake freely on the last drawing of the 
 year. 
 
 When she had cabalistic dreams — for all her dreams did 
 not bear on the numbers of the lottery — she would go and tell 
 them to Joseph; he was the only being who would listen to 
 her, not merely without scolding her, but saying the kindly 
 words by which artists can soothe a monomania. All really 
 great minds respect and sympathize with genuine passions; 
 they understand them, finding their root in the heart or the 
 brain. As Joseph saw things, his brother loved tobacco and 
 spirits, his old Maman Descoings loved lottery-tickets, his 
 mother loved God, young Desroches loved lawsuits, old Des- 
 roches loved fiy-fishing; every one, said he, loves something. 
 What he loved was ideal beauty in all things ; he loved Byron's 
 poetry, Gericault's painting, Eossini's music, Walter Scott's 
 romances. 
 
 "Every man to his taste, maman," he would say, "but your 
 three-pounder hangs fire." 
 
 "It will not miss. You shall be a rich man, and my little 
 Bixiou as well!" 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 63 
 
 "Give it all to your grandson," cried Joseph. "After all, 
 do you as you please." 
 
 "Oh, if it comes out, I shall have enough for everybody. 
 To begin with, you shall have a fine studio ; you shall not have 
 to give up going to the Opera in order to pay your models 
 and colorman. — Do you know, child," she went on, "that 
 you have not given me a very creditable part in that picture 
 of yours ?" 
 
 Joseph, from motives of economy, had used Madame Des- 
 coings as the model for a head in his splendid painting of a 
 young courtesan introduced by an old woman to a Venetian 
 senator. This work, a masterpiece of modern art, mistaken 
 for a Titian by Gros himself, prepared the younger painters 
 to recognize and proclaim Joseph's superiority in the Salon 
 of 1823. 
 
 "Those who know you, know well what you are," said he 
 gaily, "and why should you care about those who do not 
 know you ?" 
 
 In the last ten years the old woman's face had acquired 
 the mellow tone of an Easter pippin. Her wrinkles had 
 become set in the full flesh that had grown cold and pulpy. 
 Her eyes, full of sparkle still, seemed animated by a youthful 
 and eager thought, which might the more easily be regarded 
 as one of greed, because there is always some little greed in 
 a gambler. Her plump features betrayed deep dissimulation, 
 and a dominant idea buried far down in her heart. Her 
 passion required secretiveness. The movement of her lips gave 
 a hint of gluttony. Thus, though she was in fact the worthy 
 and kindhearted woman we have seen, the eye might be mis- 
 taken in her. She was a perfect model for the old woman 
 Joseph wished to represent. 
 
 Coralie, a young actress of exquisite beauty, who died in 
 the bloom of her youth, the mistress of a friend of Bridau's, 
 Lucien de Rubempre, a young poet, had given him the idea of 
 this subject. This fine work was sometimes called an 
 imitation, but it was a splendid scene as a setting for three 
 portraits. Michel Chrestien, a youthful member of the 
 
64 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Artistic Society, had lent his Eepublican countenance as a 
 model for the senator, and Joseph gave it some touches of 
 maturity, as he slightly exaggerated the expression of Mad- 
 ame Descoings' face. 
 
 This great picture, which was to become so famous, and 
 to give rise to so much animosity, Jealousy, and admiration, 
 was only begun ; Joseph, compelled to suspend his work on it, 
 and to execute commissions for a living, was busy copying 
 pictures by the old masters, thus studying all their methods; 
 no painter handles his brush more learnedly. His good sense 
 as an artist had counseled him to conceal from Madame Des- 
 coings and from his mother the amount of money he was be- 
 ginning to make, seeing that each had a road to ruin — one in 
 Philippe, and the other in the lottery. The peculiar coolness 
 shown by the soldier in his downfall, the way in which he had 
 counted on his pretended purpose of suicide — which Joseph 
 had seen through — the mistakes he had made in the career 
 he ought never to have abandoned, in short, the smallest de- 
 tails of his conduct, had at last opened Joseph's eyes. 
 
 Such insight is rarely lacking in painters. Occupied day 
 after day in the silence of the studio, in work which leaves 
 the mind, to a certain extent, free, they grow in some sort 
 womanly ; their thoughts wander round the small facts of life, 
 and detect their covert meaning. 
 
 Joseph had bought a fine old cabinet — they were yet the 
 fashion — to decorate a corner of his studio, where the light 
 played on the panels in relief, and gave lustre to a master- 
 piece of some sixteenth century craftsman. Inside it he 
 found a secret drawer, where he hoarded a small sum in case 
 of need. With the easy trustfulness of an artist, he was ac- 
 customed to keep the cash he allowed himself for pocket- 
 money in a skull that lay on one of the divisions of this 
 cabinet; but, since his brother's return, he found a constant 
 discrepancy between the sums he spent and the balance left. 
 The hundred francs a month melted with extraordinary ra- 
 pidity. On finding nothing when he had spent but forty or 
 fifty francs, the first time he said to himself, "My money has 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 65 
 
 gone traveling post, it would seem !" The next time he care- 
 fully noted his expenses ; but in vain did he count, like Kobert 
 Macaire, "Sixteen and five make twenty-three," it would not 
 come right. 
 
 On finding it a third time still more seriously wrong, he 
 mentioned the painful subject to his Maman Descoings, who 
 loved him, as he felt, with that maternal affection, tender, 
 trusting, credulous, and enthusiastic, which his mother did 
 not feel, however kind she might be, and which is as needful 
 to an artist at the opening of his career as a hen's care is to 
 her chicks till they are fledged. To her only could he confide 
 his horrible suspicions. He was as sure of his friends as of 
 himself; Madame Descoings would certainly never take any- 
 thing to risk in the lottery; and the poor soul wrung her 
 hands at the thought as he said, "Only Philippe could com- 
 mit this petty household theft." 
 
 "Why does not he ask me for what he wants?" exclaimed 
 Joseph, mixing the paints on his palette in utter confusion 
 of colors, without heeding what he was doing. "Should I 
 refuse to give him money ?" 
 
 "But it is robbing an infant !" cried the old woman, with 
 horror expressed in her face. 
 
 "No," replied Joseph, "he can have it; he is my brother; 
 my purse is his, but he ought to ask me." 
 
 "Place a fixed sum of money there this morning and don't 
 touch it," said Madame Descoings ; "I shall know who comes 
 to the studio, and if nobody comes in but Philippe you will 
 know for certain." 
 
 Thus, by next day, Joseph had proof of the forced loans 
 levied on him by his brother. Philippe came up to the studio 
 in his brother's absence and took the little cash he needed. 
 The artist feared for his little hoard. 
 
 "Wait a bit, wait a bit, I will catch you out, my fine rascal !" 
 said he to Madame Descoings, with a laugh. 
 
 "Quite right; we ought to punish him, for I have found 
 a deficit occasionally in my own purse. But, poor boy, he 
 must have his tobacco ; he has made a habit of it." 
 5 
 
66 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Poor boy ! and poor boy indeed !" retorted the artist. "1 
 am beginning to agree with Fulgence and Bixiou — Philippe 
 is always dragging at us. First he gets mixed up in a riot, 
 and has to be sent to America, and that costs my mother 
 twelve thousand francs; then he has not the wit to find any- 
 thing in the wilds of the New World, and it costs just as 
 much to get him home again; under the pretext of having 
 repeated two words from Napoleon to a general, he believes 
 himself a great soldier, and bound to sulk with the Bourbons ; 
 meanwhile he can travel,, and amuse himself, and see the 
 world! I am not to be caught with such bird-lime as the 
 story of his woes; he does not look like a man who has not 
 made himself comfortable wherever he was ! 
 
 "Then my fine fellow has a capital place found for him; 
 he lives like Sardanapalus with an opera girl, robs the till 
 of a newspaper, and costs his mother another twelve thou- 
 sand francs. Certainly, so far as I am concerned, what need 
 I care? But Philippe will bring the poor mother to want. 
 He treats me like the dirt under his feet because I never was 
 in the Dragoon Guards ! And it will be my part, perhaps, to 
 maintain that poor dear mother in her old age, while, if he 
 goes on as he has begun, the retired ofiicer will end I don't 
 know where. 
 
 "Bixiou said to me, 'Your brother is a nice rogue !' Well, 
 your grandson is right ; Philippe will play some reckless trick 
 yet that will compromise the honor of the family, and then 
 there will be ten or twelve thousand francs more to pay ! He 
 gambles every evening ; when he comes in as drunk as a lord 
 he drops pricked cards on the stairs, on which he has noted 
 the turns of red and black. Old Desroches is doing all he 
 can to get Philippe reinstated in the army; but, for my part, 
 I believe he would be in despair at having to serve again. 
 Could you have believed that a boy with such beautiful clear 
 blue eyes, and a look like the Chevalier Bayard, would ever 
 have turned out such a scoundrel ?" 
 
 Notwithstanding the caution and coolness with which Phil- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 67 
 
 ippe staked his money every evening, he was occasionally 
 cleaned out, as players say. Then, prompted by an irresist- 
 ible craving to have his stake for the evening, ten francs, he 
 helped himself in the house to his brother's money, to any 
 Madame Descoings might leave about, or to his mother's. 
 Once already the poor widow had seen through her first sleep 
 a terrible vision : Philippe had come into her room and emp- 
 tied the pocket of her dress of all the money in it. She had 
 pretended to be asleep, but she had spent the rest of that night 
 in tears. She saw the truth. "One fault does not constitute 
 a vice," Madame Descoings had said ; but after constant lapses 
 the vice was plainly visible. Agathe could no longer doubt; 
 her best-beloved son had neither feeling nor honor. 
 
 The day after this dreadful vision, before Philippe went 
 out after breakfast, she called him into her room and be- 
 sought him in suppliant tones to ask her for the money he 
 should need. But his demands became so frequent that now, 
 for above a fortnight, Agathe's savings had been exhausted. 
 She had not a farthing; she thought of seeking work. For 
 several evenings she had discussed with Madame Descoings 
 the means of making money by her needle; indeed, the poor 
 mother had already asked at a shop — Le Pere de Famille — for 
 fancy-work to fill in, an employment by which she might earn 
 about a franc a day. In spite of her niece's absolute secrecy, 
 the old woman had easily guessed the reasons for this eager- 
 ness to make money by such feminine arts. Indeed, the 
 change in Agathe's appearance was sufficiently eloquent; her 
 fresh complexion was faded, the skin was drawn over the 
 temples and cheek-bones, her forehead was .seamed, her eyes 
 lost their lustre, some inward fire was evidently consuming 
 her, and she spent the night in tears. 
 
 But what most deeply ravaged her was the necessity for 
 silence as to her pain, her anxieties, and her apprehensions. 
 She never went to sleep till Philippe had come in ; she listened 
 for him in the street; she had studied the differences in his 
 voice, in his step, in the very tone of his cane rattling on the 
 paving-stones. She knew everything, exactly the degree of 
 
68 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 intoxication that he had reached, quaking as she heard him 
 stumble on the stairs. One night she had picked up some gold 
 pieces on the spot where he had let himself fall. When he 
 had drunk and won, his voice was husky and his stick 
 dragged; but when he had lost, there was something short, 
 crisp, and furious in his footstep ; he would sing a tune in a 
 clear voice, and carry his cane shouldered like a musket. At 
 breakfast, if he had been winning, his expression was cheerful 
 and almost affectionate; he jested coarsely, still he jested, 
 with Madame Descoings, with Joseph, and his mother; if 
 he had lost, on the contrary, he was morose, his speech was 
 curt and sharp, his gaze hard, and his gloom quite alarming. 
 
 This life of debauchery and the habit of drink left their 
 mark day by day on the countenance that had once been so 
 handsome. The veins in his face were purple, his features 
 grew thick, his eyes lost their lashes, and looked dry. And 
 then Philippe, careless of his person, carried with him the 
 miasma of smoke and spirits, and a smell of muddy boots, 
 which to a stranger would have seemed the last stamp of 
 squalor. 
 
 "You ought to have a complete new suit of clothes from 
 head to foot," said Madame Descoings to Philippe one day 
 early in December. 
 
 "And who is to pay for them ?" said he bitterly. "My poor 
 mother has not a sou; I have five hundred francs a year. It 
 would cost a year's pension to buy me an outfit, and I have 
 pledged it for three years to come . . ." 
 
 "What for?" said Joseph. 
 
 "A debt of hojior. Giroudeau borrowed a thousand francs 
 from Florentine to lend to me. — I am not well got up, it must 
 be confessed ; but when you remember that ISTapoleon is at St. 
 Helena, and sells his plate to buy food, the soldiers that re- 
 main faithful to him may very well walk in boot-tops," said 
 he, showing his boots without heels, and he walked ofE. 
 
 "He is not a bad fellow," said Agathe; "he has good feel- 
 ings." 
 
 "He may love the Emperor and still keep himself clean," 
 
 [ \ 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 69 
 
 said Joseph. "If he took some care of himself and his clothes, 
 he would look less like a tramp." 
 
 "Joseph, you ought to be indulgent to your brother," said 
 Agathe. "You can do just what you like, while he certainly 
 is out of his place." 
 
 "And why did he leave it ?" asked Joseph. "What does it 
 matter whether the flag shows Louis XVIII.'s bugs or Napo- 
 leon's cockyoly bird if the bunting flies for Prance ? France 
 is France ! I would paint for the devil. A soldier ought to 
 fight, if he is a soldier, for love of the art. If he had stayed 
 quietly in the army, by this time he would be a general." 
 
 "You are unjust," said Agathe. "Your father, who adored 
 the Emperor, would have approved of what he did. However, 
 he agrees to rejoin the army. God alone knows what is costs 
 your brother to commit what he considers an act of treason." 
 
 Joseph rose to go up to his studio; but Agathe took his 
 hand, saying: 
 
 "Be good to your brother ; he is so unfortunate." 
 
 When the artist entered his studio, followed by Madame 
 Descoings, who begged him to spare his mother's feelings, re- 
 marking how much she was altered, and what acute mental 
 suffering this alteration betrayed, they found Philippe there, 
 to their great surprise. 
 
 "Joseph, my boy," said he in an airy way, "I am desper- 
 ately in want of money. By the piper ! I owe thirty francs 
 for cigars at the tobacconist's, and I dare not pass the cursed 
 shop without paying. I have promised to pay at least ten 
 times." 
 
 "All right ! I like this way best," said Joseph. "Take it 
 out of the death's head." 
 
 "Oh, I took all that last night after dinner." 
 
 "There were forty-five francs " 
 
 "That is just what I made it," replied Philippe. "I found 
 them there. Was that wrong?" he asked. 
 
 "No, my dear fellow, no," said the artist. "It you were 
 rich, I should do as you do; only, before helping myself, I 
 should ask if it were convenient to you." 
 
70 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "It is very humiliatiDg to have to ask," replied Philippe. 
 "I would sooner you should take it as I do, and say nothing. 
 It shows more confidence. In the army, when a comrade 
 dies, if he has a good pair of boots and you have a bad pair, 
 you exchange with him." 
 
 "Yes, but you don't take them while he is alive !" 
 "A mere quibble !" retorted Philippe with a shrug. "So 
 you have no money ?" 
 
 "'No," said Joseph, determined not to show his hoard. 
 "In a few days we shall all be rich," said the old woman. 
 "Oh yes ! You really believe that your three numbers will 
 come out on the 35th at the Paris drawing ! You must put 
 in a large stake if you mean to make us all rich." 
 
 "A natural ternion for two hundred francs will bring out 
 three millions, to say nothing of the doublets and the single 
 drawings." 
 
 "At fifteen thousand times the stake — ^yes, it is exactly two 
 hundred francs !" cried Philippe. 
 
 The old woman bit her lip ; she had dropped an imprudent 
 hint. 
 
 In fact, as he went downstairs, Philippe was asking him- 
 self: 
 
 "Where has that old witch hidden the money for her lottery 
 tickets? It is sheer waste of money, and I could make such 
 good use of it ! On four stakes of fifty francs each I might 
 make two hundred thousand francs. And it is far more cer- 
 tain than the drawing of three numbers in a lottery !" 
 
 He wondered where Madame Descoings would be likely to 
 hide her hoard. 
 
 On the eve of the great Church Festivals, Agathe always 
 went to church and stayed there a long time, at confession no 
 doubt, and in preparing for Communion. It was now Christ- 
 mas Eve. Madame Descoings would certainly go out to buy 
 some extra treat for supper, but perhaps she would pay for 
 her ticket at the same time. The lottery was drawn every 
 five days, on the wheels, in turn, of Bordeaux, Lyons, Lille, 
 Strasbourg, and Paris. The Paris drawing took place on the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 71 
 
 25th of each month; the lists were closed at midnight on the 
 24th. The soldier studied the case, and set himself to watch. 
 
 At about noon Philippe came in. Madame Deseoings was 
 gone out, but she had taken the door-key. This was no 
 difficulty. Philippe, saying that he had forgotten something, 
 begged the woman at the lodge to go to fetch a locksmith, who 
 lived close by in the Eue Guenegaud, and who opened the 
 door. Philippe's first idea was to search the bed ; he unmade 
 it, felt the mattresses before examining the frame, and in the 
 bottom mattress he felt the gold pieces wrapped in paper. He 
 had soon unsewn the ticking and picked out twenty napoleons ; 
 then, without wasting time in sewing it up again, he remade 
 the bed neatly enough to prevent the old woman's observing 
 anything wrong. 
 
 The gambler made off on a light foot, intending to play 
 three times, at intervals of three hours, and for ten minutes 
 only each time. The great gamblers, ever since 1786, when 
 the gambling-houses were first opened, the formidable gam- 
 blers who were the terror of the bank, and who fairly ate 
 money at the tables, to use the familiar expression in such 
 places, never played by any other rule. But before achieving 
 this experience they lost fortunes. All the philosophy of 
 those who farmed the concern and all their profit was derived 
 from the rules ; from the non-liability of the bank ; from ties 
 called draws, of which half the winnings remained in its 
 possession; and from the villainous fraud authorized by the 
 State, which made it optional to take or reject the players 
 stakes. In a word, the bank, while refusing to play with a 
 rich and cool hand, devoured the whole fortune of any player 
 who was so persistently foolish as to allow himself to be in- 
 toxicated by the rapid whirl of its machinery, for the dealers 
 at trente-et-quarante worked almost as fast as the roulette 
 could. 
 
 Philippe had at last succeeded in acquiring that presence 
 of mind which enables a commander-in-chief to keep a keen 
 eye and a calm brain in the midst of the whirligig of things. 
 He had achieved those high politics of gambling which, it 
 
72 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 may be said incidentally^ enabled a thousand men in Paris to 
 look night after night into a gulf without turning giddy. 
 
 With these four hundred francs Philippe was determined 
 to make his fortune in the course of the day. He hid two 
 hundred francs in his boots^ and kept two hundred in his 
 pocket. By three o'clock he was at the gambling-house, where 
 the Palais-Koyal theatre now stands, where the bankers com- 
 monly held the largest reserve. Half an hour after he came 
 out, having won seven thousand francs. He went to see 
 Florentine, paid her five hundred francs that he owed her, 
 and invited her to supper after the play at the Koeher de 
 Cancale. On his way back, he went through the Kue du 
 Sentier to tell his friend Giroudeau of the projected 
 festivity. 
 
 At six o'clock Philippe had won twenty-five thousand 
 francs, and at the end of ten minutes kept his word to him- 
 self and went away. In the evening, at ten, he had won 
 seventy-five thousand francs. After the supper, which was 
 splendid, Philippe, drunk and confident, returned to the 
 tables at about midnight. Then, against the rule he had 
 made, he played for an hour and doubled his winnings. The 
 bank, from whom his mode of play had wrung a hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs, watched him with curiosity. 
 
 "Will he go away or will he stay?" the men asked each 
 other by a glance. "If he stays, he is done for." 
 
 Philippe believed that luck was with him, and stayed. At 
 three in the morning the hundred and fifty thousand francs 
 had returned to the cash-box. 
 
 The Colonel, who had drunk a good deal of grog while 
 playing, went out in a state of intoxication, which the nipping 
 cold aggravated to the utmost; but a waiter followed him, 
 picked him up, and carried him to one of the horrible places 
 where, inscribed on a lamp, the notice may be read, "Beds by 
 the night." The waiter paid for the ruined gambler, who was 
 laid on a bed in his clothes, and remained there till Christ- 
 mas night. The managers of the gambling-houses treated 
 regular customers and high players with respect. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 73 
 
 Philippe did not wake till seven that evening, his mouth 
 furred, his face swelled, and racked with nervous fever. His 
 strong constitution enabled him to get on foot to his mother's 
 home, whither he had unwittingly brought sorrow, despair, 
 ruin, and death. 
 
 The day before, when dinner was ready, Madame Descoings 
 and Agathe waited two hours for Philippe. They did not 
 sit down till seven o'clock. Agathe almost always went to her 
 room at ten ; but as she wished to attend midnight mass, she 
 went to lie down directly after dinner. The old aunt and 
 Joseph remained together in the little sitting-room which 
 now served all purposes, and she begged him to work out the 
 sum of her much-talked-of stake, her monster stake on the 
 famous ternion. She meant to go for the double numbers 
 and first drawings, so as to combine all the chances. After 
 smacking her lips over the poetry of this master-stroke, and 
 pouring out both cornucopias at the feet of her adopted 
 favorite; after telling him all her dreams, proving that she 
 could not fail to win, wondering only how she should endure 
 such good fortune, or wait for it from midnight till ten next 
 morning, Joseph, who did not see where the four hundred 
 francs were to come from, mentioned the matter. The old 
 woman smiled and led him into the old drawing-room, now 
 her bedroom. 
 
 "You will see !" said she. 
 
 Madame Descoings hastily stripped her bed, and went for 
 her scissors to unstitch the mattress ; she put on her spectacles, 
 looked at the ticking, and found it unsewn. On hearing the 
 old woman heave a sigh that came from the depths of her 
 bosom, and seemed choked by the blood rushing to her heart, 
 Joseph instinctively held out his arms to the poor old lottery- 
 gambler, and laid her senseless on a chair, calling to his 
 mother to come. Agathe sprang up, put on her dressing- 
 gown, and hurried in; by the light of a tallow candle she 
 applied every common remedy for a fainting fit — eau de 
 Cologne on her aunt's temples, cold water on her forehead, 
 burnt feathers under her nose ; at last she saw her revive. 
 
74 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "They were there this morning; he has taken them — that 
 wretch !" 
 
 "What?" asked Joseph. 
 
 "I had twenty louis in my mattress, my savings for two 
 years. Only Philippe can have taken them . . ." 
 
 "But when?" cried the mother, quite crushed; "he has not 
 been in since breakfast." 
 
 "I should be glad to be mistaken," said the old woman. 
 "But this morning, in Joseph's studio, when I spoke of my 
 stake in the lottery I had a warning. I was wrong not to go 
 down and take out my little lucky-penny and put it into the 
 lottery at once. I meant to do it, and I forget what hindered 
 me. — Good God ! And I went to buy cigars for him !" 
 
 "But," said Joseph, "our front-door was locked. Besides, 
 it is so vile that I will not believe it. Philippe watched you 
 out, unsewed your mattress, premeditated 1 No." 
 
 "I felt them there this morning when I made my bed after 
 breakfast," said Madame Descoings. 
 
 Agathe, quite horror-stricken, went downstairs to ask 
 whether her son had come in during the day, and the door- 
 keeper told her Philippe's fable. The mother, struck to the 
 heart, came up again completely altered. As white as her cot- 
 ton shift, she walked as we fancy ghosts may walk, noiselessly, 
 slowly, as if by the impulse of a superhuman power, and yet 
 almost mechanically. She held a candle in her hand, which 
 lighted up her face and her eyes fixed in despair. Without 
 knowing it, she had pushed her hair over her brow with her 
 hands, and this detail made her so beautiful in her horror that 
 Joseph stood riveted by this image of anguish, this vision of 
 a statue of terror and dejection. 
 
 "Aunt," said she, "take my spoons and forks; I have six 
 sets, that will make up the sum, for it was I who took it for 
 Philippe ; I thought I could replace it before you should find 
 it out. Oh! I have suffered !" 
 
 She sat down. Her dry fixed gaze wavered a little then. 
 
 "It is he who has done the trick," said Madame Descoings 
 in an undertone to Joseph. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 75 
 
 "N"o, no," repeated Agathe. "Take the silver, sell it; it is 
 of no use to me ; we can use yours." 
 
 She went into her room, took up the plate-box, found it 
 very light, opened it, and saw a pawn ticket. The poor 
 mother gave a dreadful cry. Joseph and Madame Deseoings 
 hastened in, glanced at the box, and the mother's heroic false- 
 hood was in vain. They all three stood silent, avoiding even 
 a glance. At that moment, with a gesture almost of mad- 
 ness, Agathe laid her finger on her lips to seal the secret which 
 no one would divulge. Then all three went back to the 
 sitting-room fire. 
 
 "I tell you, my children, I am heart-broken," said Madame 
 Deseoings. "My numbers will be drawn, I am quite positive ! 
 I am not thinking of myself, but of you two ! — Philippe is a 
 monster," she went on, turning to her niece. "He does not 
 love you, in spite of all you have done for him. If you do 
 not find some means to protect yourself, the wretch will turn 
 you into the street. Promise me to sell your stock, realize 
 the capital, and sink it in an annuity. By taking that step 
 you will never be a burden on Joseph. Monsieur Desroehes 
 wants to set up his son in an office, and the boy" (he was now 
 six-and-twenty) "has found one. He will take your twelve 
 thousand francs and pay you an annuity." 
 
 Joseph seized his mother's candlestick and hurried up to 
 the studio ; he came down with three hundred francs. 
 
 "Here, Maman Deseoings," said he, offering her his little 
 hoard, "it is no business of ours to inquire what you do with 
 your money; we owe you what is missing, and here it is — 
 almost all of it." 
 
 «I ! — ^take your little treasure, the result of your privations, 
 which distress me so much! Are you mad, Joseph?" cried 
 the old woman, evidently torn by her stupid belief in the luck 
 of her numbers in the State lottery, and what seemed to her 
 the sacrilege of such a proceeding. 
 
 "Oh ! do what you will with it," said Agathe, moved to tears 
 by this action of her true son's. 
 
 Madame Deseoings took Joseph's head in her hands and 
 kissed his forehead. 
 
76 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "My child, do not tempt me," she said; "I should only lose 
 it. The lottery is a fool's game !" 
 
 Fever was anything so heroical said in any of the obscure 
 dramas of private life. Was it not, in fact, the triumph of 
 affection over an inveterate vice ? 
 
 At this minute the bells began to toll for midnight mass. 
 
 "Besides, it is too late," added the old woman. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Joseph; "here are your cabalistic calcula- 
 tions." 
 
 The magnanimous artist seized the tickets, flew downstairs, 
 and away to pay the stake. When he was gone, Agathe and 
 Madame Descoings melted into tears. 
 
 "He is gone!" exclaimed the old gambler. "But it will 
 all be his, for it is his money." 
 
 Joseph, unluckily, did not in the least know where to find 
 the lottery-ticket offices, which those who frequented them 
 knew as well in Paris as, in these days, smokers know the 
 tobacco shops. The painter rushed wildly on, looking at the 
 lamp signs. When he asked some one he met to tell him 
 where there was a lottery-office, he was told that they were 
 closed, but that one by the steps of the Palais Eoyal some- 
 times remained open a little later. The artist flew to the 
 Palais Eoyal ; the office was shut. 
 
 "Two minutes sooner and you could have paid in your 
 stake," said one of the ticket-criers who stood at the bottom 
 of the steps, shouting these strange words, "Twelve hundred 
 francs for forty sous !" and selling ready numbered tickets. 
 
 By the glimmer of a street lamp and the lights in the Cafe 
 de la Eotonde, Joseph examined these tickets to see whether 
 by chance either of them bore Madame Descoings' pet num- 
 bers; but he could not find one, and returned home in grief 
 at having done in vain all that lay in his power to please the 
 old woman, to whom he related his disappointments. 
 
 Agathe and her aunt went off to mass at Saint-Germain- 
 des-Pres. Joseph went to bed. No one kept Christmas Eve. 
 Madame Descoings had lost her head; Agathe's heart was 
 for ever broken. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 77 
 
 The two women rose late. Ten o'clock was striking when 
 Madame Descoings bestirred herself to get breakfast, which 
 was not ready till half-past eleven. By that time the long 
 frames hanging outside the lottery-ticket offices showed an 
 array of figures. If Madame Descoings had had her ticket, 
 she would have gone by half -past nine o'clock to the Eue Neuve 
 des Petits Chanips to learn her fate, which was decided in a 
 house next door to the ofiices of the Minister of Finance, on a 
 spot now occupied by the Square and the Ventadour theatre. 
 
 Every time the lottery was drawn, the curious could see at 
 the door of this building a posse of old women, cooks, and old 
 men, who at that time constituted as strange a spectacle as 
 that of the stock-holders forming a queue on the day when 
 dividends are paid at the Treasury. 
 
 "Well, so you are rolling in riches !" exclaimed old Des- 
 roehes, coming in just as Madame Descoings was swallowing 
 her last mouthful of coffee. 
 
 "How?" cried poor Agathe. 
 
 "Her three numbers have come out," said he, holding out 
 a list of numbers written on a scrap of paper, such as office 
 clerks kept by the hundred in the paper-tray on their desks. 
 
 Joseph read the list. Agathe read the list. Madame Des- 
 coings read nothing. She fell back as if stricken by light- 
 ning; seeing her face change and hearing her cry, old Des- 
 roches and Joseph carried her to her bed. Agathe went for 
 a doctor. The poor woman had fallen in a fit of apoplexy, 
 and she did not recover consciousness till about four in the 
 afternoon. Old Doctor Haudry, her physician, pronounced 
 that, notwithstanding this amelioration, she would do well to 
 settle her affairs and think of her religious duties. She had 
 Tittered but two words, "Three millions !" 
 
 Old Desroches, to whom Joseph explained the circum- 
 stances with the necessary reservations, spoke of numbers of 
 lottery-gamblers who had in the same way missed a fortune 
 on the day when by some fatality they had failed to pay up 
 their stakes ; still, he understood how mortal a blow this must 
 be after twenty years of perseverance. 
 
78 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 At five o'clock, when perfect silence reigned in the little 
 dwelling, and when the dying woman, watched by Joseph at 
 the foot of her bed, and Agathe at her pillow, was expecting 
 her grandson, whom Desroches had gone to seek, the sound 
 of Philippe's step and walking-stick echoed on the stairs. 
 
 "There he is, there he is !" cried Madame Descoings, sitting 
 up in bed, and suddenly recovering the use of her paralyzed 
 tongue. 
 
 Agathe and Joseph were impressed by the impulse of horror 
 which so vehemently roused the sick woman. Their miserable 
 expectations were wholly justified by Philippe's appearance; 
 by his purple, vacant face, his uncertain gait, and the horrible 
 look of his eyes with deep red rims, glazed and yet wild-look- 
 ing; he was shivering violently with fever, and his teeth 
 chattered. 
 
 "What the devil !" he exclaimed. "Neither bit nor sup, and 
 my throat is on fire. Well, what's up now ? The foul fiend 
 puts his hoof in all that concerns us. My old Descoings in 
 bed, and making eyes at me as big as saucers " 
 
 "Be silent, sir," said Agathe, rising. "At least you may 
 respect the misery you have caused." 
 
 "Hallo ! Sir ?" said he, looking at his mother. "My dear 
 little mother, that is not kind; do you no longer love your 
 boy?" 
 
 "Are you worthy to be loved? Have you forgotten what 
 you did yesterday? You may look out for a lodging for 
 yourself; you shall no longer live vpith me. Prom to-mor- 
 row," she added, "for in such a state as you are in it would 
 be difiicult " 
 
 "To turn me out ? — So you are going to play the melodrama 
 of the Banished Son?" he went on. "Dear, dear! Is that 
 how you take it ? Well, you are all a pretty pack of owls ! What 
 harm have I done? Cleaned out the old woman's mattress 
 for her. We don't keep money in wool, deuce take it. — And 
 where is the crime? Did not she take twenty thousand 
 francs, I should like to know ? Are not we her creditors ? I 
 have taken so much on account ; that's all." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 79 
 
 "Oh, God ! oh, God !" cried the dying woman, clasping her 
 hands in prayer. 
 
 "Hold your tongue !" said Joseph, rushing at his brother 
 and clapping his hand over his moutJi. 
 
 "Eight about face, half turn to the left, you dirty little 
 painter !" replied Philippe, laying his heavy hand on Joseph's 
 shoulder, turning him round, and landing him in an arm- 
 chair. "That is not the way to meddle with the moustache 
 of a Major of Dragoons of the Imperial Guard." 
 
 "She has repaid me all she owed me," cried Agathe, rising 
 and turning an angry face to her son. "Besides, that is no- 
 body's business but mine. You are killing her. Go," she 
 added with a gesture that exhausted all her force, "and never 
 let me see you again. You are a villian !" 
 
 "I am killing her?" 
 
 "Yes; her numbers were drawn in the lottery, and you 
 stole the money she would have staked." 
 
 "Oh, if she is dying of a lost chance, then it is not I who 
 am killing her," retorted the drunkard. 
 
 "Go, I say," said Agathe; "you fill me with horror. You 
 have every vice ! Good God, and is this my son ?" 
 
 A hollow croak from Madame Descoings' throat had aggra- 
 vated Agathe's wrath. 
 
 "And yet I still love you, mother, though you are the cause 
 of all my misfortunes," said Philippe. "And you can turn 
 me out of doors on a Christmas Day, the birthday of What d'ye 
 call him — Jesus ! — What did you do to Grandpapa Eouget, 
 your father, that he turned you out and disinherited you ? If 
 you had not offended him in some way, we should have been 
 rich, and I should not have been reduced to the depths of 
 misery. What did you do to your father, I should like to 
 know, you who are so good? You see, I may be a very good 
 boy, and be turned out of doors nevertheless — I, the glory of 
 the family " 
 
 "Its disgrace !" cried Madame Descoings. 
 
 'TLeave the room, or kill me !" cried Joseph, rushing on his 
 brother with the fury of a lion. 
 
80 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Good God ! good God !" cried Agathe, trying to separate 
 the brothers. 
 
 At this monient Bixiou and Doctor Haudry came in. 
 Joseph had knocked down his brother, and Philippe was lying 
 on the floor. 
 
 "He is a perfect wild beast!" he said. "Kot a word, or 
 I'll " 
 
 "I will remember this," bellowed Philippe. 
 
 "A little family difference ?" said Bixiou. 
 
 "Pick him up," said the physician ; "he is as ill as the old 
 lady ; undress him, put him to bed, and pull his boots off." 
 
 "That is easily said," observed Bixiou. "But they must be 
 cut off : his legs are swelled " 
 
 Agathe brought a pair of scissors. When she had slit the 
 boots, which at that time were worn outside tight-fitting 
 trousers, ten gold pieces rolled out on to the floor. 
 
 "There — there is her money," muttered Philippe. "Blasted 
 idiot that I am, I forgot the reserve fund! So I too missed 
 fire!" 
 
 The delirium of high fever now came upon Philippe, who 
 began to talk wildly. Joseph, with the help of the elder Des- 
 roches, who came in presently, and of Bixiou, got the wretched 
 man up to his own room. Doctor Haudry was obliged to write 
 a line begging the loan of a strait-waistcoat from the hospital, 
 for his mania increased to such a pitch that they feared he 
 might kill himself — he was like a madman. 
 
 By nine o'clock peace was restored. The Abbe Loratix and 
 Desroches did what they could to comfort Agathe, who sat 
 by her aunt's pillow, and never ceased crying; but she only 
 listened and shook her head, preserving obstinate silence; 
 only Joseph and Madame Descoings knew the depth and ex- 
 tent of the inward wound. 
 
 "He will do better, mother," said Joseph at last, when Des- 
 roches and Bixiou were gone. 
 
 "Oh !" cried the poor woman, "but he is right. Philippe 
 is right ! My father cursed me ; I have no right. . . Here 
 is the money," she went on to Madame Descoings, adding 
 Joseph's three hundred francs to the two hundred found in 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 81 
 
 Philippe's possession. "Go and see if your brother wants 
 something to drink," she said to Joseph. 
 
 "Will you keep a promise made to a dying woman ?" asked 
 the old woman, feeling that her mind was going. 
 
 "Yes, aunt." 
 
 "Then swear to me to hand over your money to that young 
 Desroches for an annuity. You will miss my little income, 
 and from all I hear you say I know you will let that wretch 
 squeeze you to the last sou " 
 
 "Aunt;, I swear it." 
 
 The old woman died on the 31st of December, five days 
 after the fatal blow so innocently dealt her by the elder Des- 
 roches. The five hundred francs, all the money there was in 
 the house, barely sufficed to pay the expenses of her 
 funeral. She left a very little plate and furniture, of which 
 Madame Bridau paid the value to her grandson. 
 
 Eeduced now to eight hundred francs a year, the annuity 
 paid her by the younger Desroches — ^who concluded the pur- 
 chase of a business, at present without clients, and took her 
 twelve thousand francs as capital — Agathe gave up her rooms 
 on the third floor and sold all but the most necessary furni- 
 ture. When, at the end of a month, Philippe was con- 
 valescent, his mother coldly explained to him that the ex- 
 penses of his illness had absorbed all he^. ready money ; hence- 
 forth she must work for her living, and she entreated him in 
 the most afBectionate manner to rejoin the army and provide 
 for himself. 
 
 "You might have saved yourself your sermon," said 
 Philippe, looking at his mother with eyes cold from utter in- 
 difference. "I have very clearly seen that neither you nor 
 my brother love me in the least. I am alone in the world 
 now ! Well, I prefer it so." 
 
 "Prove yourself worthy to be loved," replied the poor 
 mother, wounded to the quick, "and we shall love you again." 
 
 "Fiddlesticks!" said he, interrupting her. 
 
 He took his old hat, all worn at the edges, and his stick, 
 stuck the hat over his ear, and went downstairs whistling. 
 6 
 
82 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Philippe ! where are you off to without any money ?" cried 
 his mother, who could not restrain her tears. "Here " 
 
 She held out a hundred francs done up in paper. Philippe 
 came up the steps he had gone down and took the money. 
 
 "And you do not kiss me ?" said she, melting into tears. 
 
 He clasped her to his breast, without any of the effusive 
 feeling which alone gives value to a kiss. 
 
 "And where are you going ?" said Agathe. 
 
 "To Florentine, Giroudeau's mistress. They really are 
 friends !" he replied coarsely. 
 
 He went. Agathe returned to her room, her knees quaking, 
 her eyes dim, her heart in a vise. She fell on her knees, be- 
 sought God to protect her unnatural son, and abdicated the 
 burden of motherhood. 
 
 In February 1822 Madame Bridau had established her- 
 self in the bedroom formerly occupied by Philippe, over the 
 kitchen of her third-floor rooms. The painter's bedroom and 
 studio were on the opposite side of the landing. Seeing his 
 mother reduced so low, Joseph was determined that she should 
 be as comfortable as possible. After his brother had left he 
 took the arrangement of the attic in hand, and gave it an 
 artistic stamp. He put in a carpet; the bed, very simply 
 arranged, but with exquisite taste, had a character of 
 monastic simplicity. The walls, hung with cheap chintz, 
 judiciously chosen of a color to harmonize with the furniture, 
 which was cleaned to look like new, made the little room look 
 neat and elegant. He had a door made to shut in the landing, 
 and hung it with a curtain. The window was screened by a 
 blind that subdued the light. Thus, though the poor mother's 
 life was restricted to the simplest expression which a woman's 
 life in Paris can be reduced to, Agathe was at any rate better 
 off than anybody in a similar position, thanks to her son. 
 
 To spare his mother the worst fatigues of housekeeping, 
 Joseph took her to dine every day at a table d'hote in the Eue 
 de Beaune frequented by ladies of respectability, deputies, and 
 men of title, where the charge for each person was ninety 
 
A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 83 
 
 francs a month. Agathe, having only the breakfast to pro- 
 vide, fell into the same habits for her son as she had kept up 
 for his father. In spite of Joseph's pious fibs, she somehow 
 found out that her dinner cost about a hundred francs a 
 month. Horrified by this enormous expenditure, and never 
 supposing that her son could earn much by "painting naked 
 women," by the influence of her director, the Abbe Loraux, 
 she obtained the promise of a place with seven hundred francs 
 a year, in a lottery-ticket office granted by Government to the 
 Comtesse de Bauvan, the widow of a Chouan leader. 
 
 These lottery offices, bestowed on widows who had friends 
 at Court, not unfrequently were the whole support of a 
 family who managed the business of it. But, under the 
 Eestoration, the difficulty of finding rewards in the gift of a 
 constitutional Government for all the services that had been 
 done, led to the practice of giving to impoverished ladies of 
 rank not one, but two such lottery-ticket offices, of which the 
 emoluments might be from six to ten thousand francs. In 
 such cases the widow of a general or a nobleman did not keep 
 the ticket-office herself ; she had managers with a sort of part- 
 nership. When these managers were unmarried men they 
 could not help having a clerk under them, for the office 
 always had to be kept open till midnight, and the accounts 
 required by the Minister of Finance were very elaborate. 
 
 The Comtesse de Bauvan, to whom the Abb6 Loraux ex- 
 plained Madame Bridau's position, promised that if her 
 present manager should leave, Agathe should have the re- 
 version ; meanwhile she bargained for a salary of six hundred 
 francs for the widow. Compelled to be at her work by ten 
 in the morning, poor Agathe had scarcely time to dine; she 
 returned to her office at seven in the evening, and never 
 stirred out again before midnight. Never once for two years 
 did Joseph fail to call for his mother and take her home, and 
 he often fetched her to dinner. His friends would see him 
 leave the Opera, the Italiens, or the most splendid drawing- 
 rooms, to be in the Rue Vivienne before midnight. 
 
 Agathe soon fell into the monotonously regular way of 
 
84 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 life, which often is a comfort and support to sorrow-stricken 
 souls. In the morning, after tidying her room, where there 
 were now no cats or little birds, she cooked the breakfast at a 
 corner of her fireplace, and laid it in the studio, where she ate 
 it with her son. She then arranged Joseph's bedroom, took 
 off her fire, and brought her sewing into the studio, sitting 
 by the little stove, and leaving the room if he had a visitor 
 or a model. Though she knew nothing of art or its processes, 
 she liked the stillness of the place. In this matter she made 
 no advance; she affected nothing; she was always greatly 
 astonished at the importance attached to color, composition, 
 and drawing. When one of the members of Joseph's little 
 club, or one of his artist friends, was discussing such matters 
 — Schinner, Pierre Grassou, or Leon de Lora, a very young 
 student then known by the name of Mistigris — she would 
 come and look on attentively, and never discover what could 
 give occasion to such big words and hot arguments. 
 
 She made her son's linen, mended his stockings and socks ; 
 she even went so far as to clean his palette, collect his paint- 
 ing-rags, and keep the studio in order. And seeing his mother 
 so intelligently careful of these little details, Joseph loaded 
 her with kindness. If the mother and son did not meet half- 
 way on questions of art, they were closely united by affection. 
 
 The mother had a scheme. One morning when she had 
 made much of Joseph while he was sketching an enormous 
 picture — which he subsequently painted, but which fell flat 
 — she ventured to say aloud : 
 
 "Oh, dear ! I wonder what he is doing?" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Philippe." 
 
 "By Jove ! the fellow is having a hard time. It will do 
 him good." 
 
 "But he has had hard times before, and perhaps that was 
 what spoilt him for us. If he were happy, he would be good." 
 
 "My dear mother, you fancy that he was in distress while 
 he was away, but you are mistaken; he lived at his ease in 
 New York, as he stUl does here " 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 85 
 
 ■'But if he were in want, near us, that would be dread- 
 
 ful- 
 
 "Yes," said Joseph ; "and for my part, I am willing to give 
 him money, but I will not see him. He killed poor Aunt 
 Descoings." 
 
 "Then you would not paint his portrait ?" 
 
 "For you, mother, I would suffer martyrdom. I would 
 remember only the one fact that he is my brother." 
 
 "His portrait as a Captain of Dragoons, on horseback ?" 
 
 "Well, I have a fine horse there, copied from Gros, and I do 
 not know what to do with it." 
 
 "Then go to his friend and find out what has become of 
 him." 
 
 "I will." 
 
 Agathe rose; her scissors, everything fell on the floor; she 
 came to kiss Joseph on his forehead and shed two tears on his 
 hair. 
 
 "That boy is your passion," said he. "We all have our ill- 
 starred passion !" 
 
 That evening Joseph went to the Eue du Sentier at about 
 four o'clock, and there he found his brother, filling Girou- 
 deau's place. The elder captain of Dragoons had been trans- 
 ferred as cashier to a weekly paper managed by his nephew. 
 Though Finot was still proprietor of the little daily paper 
 for which he had issued shares, though the shares were all 
 in his own hands, the ostensible owner and editor was a friend 
 of his named Lousteau, the son, as it happened, of the sub- 
 delegate from Issoudun on whom Bridau's grandfather 
 (Doctor Rouget) had wanted to be revenged, and conse- 
 quently Madame Hochon's nephew. 
 
 To oblige his uncle, Finot had given him Philippe as 
 deputy, paying him, however, only half the salary. Every 
 day at five o'clock Giroudeau checked the balance and carried 
 off the money taken during the day. Coloquinte, the old 
 soldier who served as messenger, and who ran the errands, also 
 kept an eye on Major Philippe. Philippe, however, was 
 behaving himself. A salary of six hundred francs and a pen- 
 
86 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 sion of five hundred were enough for him to live on, all the 
 more because a fire was provided for him during the day, and 
 in the evenings he could go to the play on the free list, so he 
 had nothing to pay for but food and lodging. Coloquinte 
 was going out, loaded with stamped papers, and Philippe was 
 brushing his green linen office cuffs, when Joseph walked in. 
 
 "Lord ! Here is the brat," said Philippe. "Well, we will 
 dine together; you shall come to the Opera, Florine and 
 Florentine have a box. I am going with Giroudeau ; you will 
 be of the party, and I will introduce you to Nathan." 
 
 He took up his loaded cane, and wetted the end of a cigar. 
 
 "I cannot avail myself of your invitation ; I must look after 
 my mother. We dine at the table d'hote." 
 
 "Well, and how is she, poor dear thing ?" 
 
 "She is pretty well," said the painter. "I have made a 
 new portrait of my father and one of Aunt Descoings. I 
 have finished one of myself, and I should like to give my 
 mother one of you in the uniform of the Imperial Dragoon 
 Guards." 
 
 "All right." 
 
 "But you must come and sit " 
 
 "I am obliged to be here, in this hen-coop, every day from 
 nine till five." 
 
 "Two Sundays will be enough." 
 
 "All right, young 'un," replied Napoleon's erewhile staff- 
 officer, as he lighted his cigar at the porter's lamp. 
 
 When Joseph described Philippe's position to his mother, 
 as they went together to their dinner in the Eue de Beaune, 
 he felt her hand tremble on his arm ; ]oy lighted up the faded 
 face ; the poor woman drew breath as though she had been re- 
 lieved of some enormous burden. Next day she was full of 
 little attentions for Joseph, prompted by her happiness and 
 gratitude; she dressed his studio with flowers, and bought 
 two vases. 
 
 The first Sunday when Philippe was to sit, Agathe took 
 care to provide an excellent breakfast. She placed everything 
 on the table, not forgetting a flask of brandy, not more than 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 87 
 
 half full. She then hid herself behind a screen, in which 
 she made a small hole. The ex-dragoon had sent his uniform 
 the day before, and she could not refrain from hugging it. 
 When Philippe mounted, in full dress, on one of the stuffed 
 horses kept by saddlers, which Joseph had hired, Agathe, 
 not to betray herself, was obliged to hide the slight noise of her 
 weeping under the voices of the two brothers as they talked. 
 
 Philippe sat for two hours before and two hours after 
 breakfast. At three in the afternoon he put on his ordinary 
 dress, and, while smoking a cigar, again invited his brother 
 to dine with him at the Palais Eoyal. He jingled the gold in 
 his pockets. 
 
 "No," said Joseph. "You frighten me when I see you with 
 gold about you." 
 
 "By Heaven! Then you stiU have a bad opinion of me 
 here?" roared the Lieutenant-Colonel in a voice of thunder. 
 "Do you think a man can never save ?" 
 
 "'No, no," said Agathe, coming out of her hiding-place, and 
 kissing her son "We will go and dine with him, Joseph." 
 
 Joseph dared not scold his mother ; he dressed, and Philippe 
 took them to the Eue Montorgueuil, where, at the Eocher de 
 Cancale, he gave them a splendid dinner, for which the bill 
 ran up to a hundred francs. 
 
 "The Devil!" said Joseph uneasily. "With a salary of 
 eleven hundred francs a year you manage, like Ponchard in 
 the Dame Blanche, to save enough to purchase an estate !" 
 
 "Pooh, I am in luck," said the dragoon, who had drunk an 
 enormous quantity of wine. 
 
 On hearing this speech, made on the doorstep just as they 
 were getting into a hackney coach to go to the play — for 
 Philippe had proposed to take his mother to the Circus, the 
 only entertainment of the kind allowed her by her director — 
 Joseph tightened his hand on his mother's arm. Agathe at 
 once said she felt unwell, and declined to go to the theatre, so 
 Philippe took her and his brother to the Eue Mazarine. When 
 she found herself alone with Joseph in their attic, she sat 
 long lost in thought. 
 
88 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 On the next Sunday Philippe came again to sit. This time 
 his mother sat in the room with the brothers. She brought 
 in the breakfast, and could ask the trooper various questions. 
 She then learnt that the nephew of her mother's old friend, 
 Madame Hochon, figured in a small way in literature. 
 Philippe and his ally Giroudeau lived in the society of jour- 
 nalists, actresses, and publishers, and, as cashiers, met with 
 some respect. Philippe, who always took drams of kirsch 
 while sitting after breakfast, talked freely. He boasted of 
 becoming a person of importance again ere long. But at a 
 question from Joseph as to his pecuniary means he kept 
 silence. 
 
 As it happened, the next day was a great holiday, and the 
 paper was not to come out, so Philippe, to get the thing done 
 with, proposed to come and sit again on the morrow. Joseph 
 explained to him that the Salon would open before long, 
 that he had not money enough to buy frames for his pictures, 
 and could only earn it by finishing a copy of a Eubens re- 
 quired by a picture-dealer named Magus. The original be- 
 longed to a rich Swiss banker, who had lent it only for ten 
 days. Next day would be the last ; it was therefore absolutely 
 necessary to put off the sitting till the following Sunday. 
 
 "And that is it?" said Philippe, looking at a painting by 
 Eubens that stood on an easel. 
 
 "Yes," said Joseph. "That is worth twenty thousand 
 france. That is what genius can do. There are such squares 
 of canvas that are worth a hundred thousand francs." 
 
 "Well, I like your copy best," said the dragoon. 
 
 "It is fresher," said Joseph, laughing; "but my copy is 
 only worth one thousand francs. I must have to-morrow to 
 give the old tone and look of the original, that they may be 
 indistinguishable." 
 
 "Good-bye, mother," said Philippe, embracing Agathe, "till 
 next Sunday." 
 
 On the following day Elie Magus was to come for his copy. 
 A friend of Joseph's, who often worked for the dealer, 
 Pierre Grassou, wished to see the copy finished. To plaj 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 89 
 
 him a trick, Joseph put his copy, glazed with a particular 
 varnish, in the place of the original, which he set up on his 
 easel. Pierre Grassou de Fougeres was completely taken in, 
 and amazed at the extraordinary imitation. 
 
 "Will you take in old Magus ?" said Pierre Grassou. 
 
 "That remains to be seen," said Joseph. 
 
 But the dealer did not come, and it was late. Agathe was 
 to dine with Madame Desroches, who had just lost her hus- 
 band ; so Joseph proposed to Grassou to come and dine at his 
 table d'hote. On going out he left the key of the studio, as 
 he always did, with the woman who kept the house door. 
 
 "I am going to sit to my brother this evening," said 
 Philippe to this woman an hour later. "He will be in 
 presently, and I will wait for him in the studio." 
 
 The woman gave him the key. Philippe went up, took the 
 copy, thinking it was the original, came down, gave back the 
 key, explaining that he had forgotten something, and went ofE 
 with the Eubens to sell it for three thousand francs. He had 
 taken the precaution of telling Elie Magus, from his brother, 
 not to call till the next day. At night, when Joseph came in 
 after fetching his mother from Madame Desroches', the porter 
 told him of Philippe's vagaries, coming away almost as soon 
 as he had gone in. 
 
 "If he has not had the good taste to take the copy, I am a 
 ruined man!" exclaimed the painter, at once guessing the 
 theft. He flew up the three flights of stairs and into the 
 studio, and exclaimed, "Thank God! He has been what he 
 will be to the end — a fool and a knave." 
 
 Agathe, who had followed Joseph, did not understand this 
 exclamation ; but when her son explained it, she simply stood 
 still, dry-eyed. 
 
 "I have but one son !" she said in a weak voice. 
 
 "We have always avoided disgracing him before strangers," 
 replied Joseph. "But we must now tell the porter he is never 
 to be admitted. Henceforth we must carry our keys. — I will 
 finish the portrait from memory, there is little to be done to 
 it." 
 
90 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Leave it as it is ; it would make me too unhappy," replied 
 his mother, stricken to the heart, and appalled by such mean- 
 ness. 
 
 Philippe knew what the price of this copy was needed for, 
 knew the gulf of difficulty into which he was flinging his 
 brother, and nothing had deterred him. After this last crime, 
 Agathe would. never mention Philippe; her face assumed a 
 look of bitter, deep, and concentrated despair. One thought 
 was killing her. 
 
 "Some day," she said to herself, "we shall see the name of 
 Bridau in the criminal courts." 
 
 Two months after this, just before Agathe entered on her 
 duties at the lottery office, a soldier called one morning to see 
 Madame Bridau, who was at breakfast with Joseph, announc- 
 ing himself as a friend of Philippe's on urgent business. 
 
 When Giroudeau mentioned his name the mother and son 
 quailed, all the more because the ex-dragoon had a rough, 
 weather-beaten sailor's countenance that was anything rather 
 than reassuring. His ashy gray eyes, his piebald moustache, 
 the remaining tufts of hair brushed up round his butter- 
 colored bald head, had an indescribably unwholesome and li- 
 centious look. He wore an old iron-gray overcoat, with the 
 rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor; it was buttoned 
 with difficulty over a stomach like a cook's, quite in keeping 
 with a mouth that opened from ear to ear, and broad shoulders. 
 This frame was carried on a pair of thin legs. His com- 
 plexion, with the high color on the cheek-bones, betrayed a 
 jovial life. The lower part of his cheeks was deeply wrinkled, 
 and overlapped his worn black velvet collar. Among other 
 decorative touches, the ex-dragoon had in his ears an enormous 
 pair of gold earrings. 
 
 '^hat a sot !" said Joseph to himself. 
 
 "Madame," said Finot's uncle and cashier, "your son is in 
 such an unfortunate predicament that his friends cannot help 
 applying to you to beg you to share the very considerable ex- 
 penses he involves them in. He can no longer do his work for 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 91 
 
 the paper; and Mademoiselle Florentine of the Porte Saint- 
 Martin has given him a room in a miserable attic in the Eue 
 Vendome, where she lives. Philippe is dying ; if you and his 
 brother cannot pay for the doctor and the medicine, we shall 
 be obliged, for his own sake and cure, to have him taken to 
 the Capucins. But we will keep him ourselves for three hun- 
 dred francs; he must positively have a nurse; he goes out in 
 the evening while Mademoiselle Florentine is at the theatre, 
 and he takes irritant drinks, bad for his malady, and contrary 
 to rule. And we are attached to him ; it really makes us un- 
 happy. The poor fellow has pledged his pension for three 
 years; a substitute has been found for the moment to fill his 
 place, and he gets no pay. But he will kill himself, madame, 
 if we cannot put him in the asylum kept by Doctor Dubois. 
 It is a decent place and the charge is ten francs a day. Flor- 
 entine and I will pay for half a month's treatment there, do 
 you pay the rest. . . . Come, it will not be for more than 
 two months." 
 
 "Indeed, monsieur, as a mother I cannot but be eternally 
 grateful for all you are doing for my son," replied Agathe. 
 "But that son has cut himself off from my affection; and as 
 for money — I have none. To avoid being a burden on this 
 son, who works night and day, and is killing himself, who de- 
 serves all his mother's love, I am going, the day after to-mor- 
 row, into a lottery ticket office as assistant clerk. — At my age !" 
 
 "And you, young man ?" said the trooper to Joseph. "Come, 
 will not you do as much for your brother as a dancer at the 
 Porte Saint-Martin and an old soldier ?" 
 
 "Look here !" said Joseph, out of patience. "Would you 
 like me to tell you in the plainest language what was the pur- 
 pose of your visit ? You came to try to fleece us." 
 
 "Well, then, to-morrow your brother will go to the 
 hospital." 
 
 "He will be very well looked after," said Joseph. "It ever 
 I should be in the same plight, I should go there myself !" 
 
 Giroudeau went away, much disappointed, but also very 
 seriously grieved at having to send a man who had been on 
 
92 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Napoleon's staff at the battle of Montereau to the hospital of 
 the Capueins. 
 
 Three months after this, one morning towards the end of 
 July, Agathe, on her way to her office, crossing the Pont 
 Neuf to save the toll of a sou on the Pont des Arts, saw a man 
 lounging by the shops of the Quai de ficole as she walked 
 along by the river parapet. He wore the livery of the second 
 degree of poverty, and she was startled, for she thought he 
 resembled Philippe. 
 
 There are, in fact, three degress of poverty in Paris. First, 
 that of the men who keep up appearances, and who have the 
 future before them; the poverty of young men, artists, men 
 of the world who are down on their luck. The symptoms of 
 this kind of want are visible only to the microscope of the 
 most practised observer. These people constitute the knight- 
 hood of poverty ; they still ride in a cab. In the second rank 
 are old men, to whom everything is a matter of indifference, 
 who, in the month of June, display the Cross of the Legion 
 of Honor on an alpaca coat. This is the poverty of old 
 annuitants, old clerks living at Sainte-Perine, careless now 
 about their appearance. Last comes poverty in rags, the 
 poverty of the common people, and the most poetical of all; 
 studied by Callot and Hogarth, by Murillo, Charlet, Eaffet, 
 Gavarni, Meissonier ; adored and cultivated by Art, especially 
 at the Carnival! 
 
 The man in whom the unhappy Agathe fancied she recog- 
 nized her son had, as it were, one foot on each of these two 
 lowest steps. She saw a horribly starchless collar, a mangy 
 hat, broken and patched boots, a threadbare overcoat with 
 buttons that had lost their mould, while their empty gaping 
 or twisted skins matched the torn pockets and greasy collar. 
 Traces of flue on the cloth plainly revealed that if there were 
 anything in those pockets, it could only be dust. Out of a 
 pair of ripped iron-gray trousers the man drew hands as dirty 
 as a workman's. Over his breast a knitted woolen undervest, 
 tawny with long wear, of which the sleeves came below those 
 of the coat, and the edge was pulled outside the trousers. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 93 
 
 served visibly and undoubtedly as a substitute for linen. 
 Philippe wore a shade over his eyes of green silk stretched on 
 wire. His head, almost bald, his color, and hollow cheeks 
 showed that he had just come out of that dreadful hospital. 
 
 His blue military coat, though white at the seams, still 
 displayed his Eosette. Thus every passer-by looked at this 
 veteran, a victim of the Goverimient no doubt, with curiosity, 
 mingled with pity; for the Eosette attracted the eye, and 
 suggested honorable fears for the Legion of Honor, even in 
 the most rabid ultras. At that time, though an attempt had 
 been made to cast a slur on the Order by reckless promotions, 
 not more than fifty-three thousand persons in France had the 
 right to display it. 
 
 Agathe was thrilled to the marrow. Though she could not 
 possibly love this son of hers, she still could suffer acutely 
 through him. Touched by a last gleam of motherly feeling, 
 she shed tears as she saw the dashing stafE-officer make as 
 though he would go into a tobacconist's to buy a cigar, and 
 stop on the threshold; he had felt in his pockets and found 
 nothing. Agathe hastily crossed the road, drew out her 
 purse, pushed it into Philippe's hand, and fled as if she had 
 committed a crime. 
 
 For two days after she could eat nothing; she constantly 
 saw before her the horrible vision of her son dying of hunger 
 in Paris. 
 
 "When he has spent the money in my purse, who will give 
 him any?" thought she. "Giroudeau was not deceiving us; 
 Philippe has just come out of the hospital." 
 
 She no longer saw her poor aunt's murderer, the scourge 
 of the family, the domestic thief, the gambler, drunkard, low 
 debauchee; what she saw was a discharged patient dying of 
 hunger, a smoker bereft of tobacco. At seven-and-forty she 
 looked like a woman of seventy. Her eyes grew dim in tears 
 and prayer. 
 
 But this was not the last blow to be dealt her by this dread- 
 ful son; her worst anticipations were to be realized. A con- 
 spiracy was discovered of officers on service, and the para- 
 
94 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 graphs of the Moniteur containing the details of the arrests 
 were shouted in the streets. In the recesses of her little 
 coop, in the lottery office in the Eue Vivienne, Agathe heard 
 the name of Philippe Bridau. She fainted away; and the 
 head-clerk, understanding her grief and the necessity for her 
 taking some action, gave her a fortnight's leave of absence. 
 
 "Ah, my dear ! We, with our austerity, have driven him to 
 this," she said to Joseph, as she went to lie down. 
 
 "I will go to see Desroehes," said Joseph. 
 
 The artist went ofE to place his brother's case in the hands 
 of Desroehes, who was regarded as the craftiest and astutest 
 attorney in Paris, and who had rendered good service to 
 various persons of importance, among others to des Lupeaulx, 
 at that time Chief Secretary in a Minister's office. Mean- 
 while Griroudeau came to call on the widow, who trusted him 
 this time. 
 
 "Madame," said he, "find twelve thousand francs, and your 
 son will be released for want of evidence. We have only 
 to purchase the silence of two witnesses." 
 
 "I will get them," said the poor mother, not knowing how 
 or whence. 
 
 Inspired by the danger, she wrote to her godmother Mad- 
 ame Hochon to beg them of Jean-Jacques Eouget, to save 
 Philippe. If Eouget should refuse, she entreated Madame 
 Hochon to lend her the money, promising to repay it in two 
 years. By return of post she received the following letter : — 
 
 "Mt deae Child, — Though your brother has, first and last, 
 forty thousand francsi a year, to say nothing of the money 
 he has saved in the last seventeen years, which Monsieur 
 Hochon estimates at more than six hundred thousand francs, 
 he will not spend two farthings on the nephews he has never 
 seen. As for me — ^you cannot know that so long as my hus- 
 band lives I shall never have six francs to call my own. 
 Hochon is the greatest miser in Issoudun ; I do not know what 
 he does with his money; he does not give his grandchildren 
 twenty francs in a year. To borrow it I should have to ask 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 95 
 
 his leave, and he would not give it. I have not even at- 
 tempted to speak with your brother, who keeps a woman, 
 whose very humble servant he is. It is pitiable to see how the 
 poor man is treated in his own house when he has a sister and 
 nephews. 
 
 "I have hinted to you several times that your presence at 
 Issoudun might save your brother, and rescue from the 
 clutches of that hussy a fortune of forty or even sixty thou- 
 sand francs a year; but you do not answer me, or seem not 
 to have understood me. So I write to you to-day without any 
 circumlocution. I sympathize deeply with the misfortune 
 that has come upon you, but I can give you nothing but pity, 
 my dearest child. 
 
 "This is why I can do nothing to help you : Hoehon, at the 
 age of eighty-five, eats his four meals a day, sups off hard- 
 boiled eggs and salad, and is as brisk as a rabbit. I shall 
 have lived all my days— for he will write my epitaph — with- 
 out ever having had twenty francs in my purse. If you like 
 to come to Issoudun to combat the iniiuence of your brother's 
 concubine, though there are good reasons why Rouget should 
 not receive you into his house, I shall find it difficult to obtain 
 my husband's permission to invite you to mine. Still, you 
 can come ; he will give way on that point. I know a way of 
 getting what I want in some things, and that is by talking of 
 my will. This seems to me so atrocious that I have never yet 
 had recourse to it; but for you I would do the impossible. I 
 hope your Philippe will get out of the scrape, especially if you 
 have a good advocate; but come to Issoudun as soon as you 
 can. Eemember that your brother, at fifty-seven, is older 
 and more frail than Monsieur Hoehon. So the case is urgent. 
 
 "Already there are rumors of a will depriving you of your 
 inheritance; but by Monsieur Hoehon's account there is yet 
 time to procure its revocation. 
 
 "Farewell, my little Agathe. God be with you. And rely 
 on your godmother too, for she loves you. 
 
 "Maximilienne Hochon, n^e Loustbau. 
 
96 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "P. 8. — Has my nephew Etienne, who writes for the papers, 
 and is intimate, I am told, with your son Philippe, ever been 
 to pay his respects to you ? — But only come, and we will talk 
 about him." 
 
 This letter gave Agathe much to think about; of course 
 she showed it to Joseph, to whom she was obliged to confide 
 Giroudeau's suggestion. The artist, who was cautious when 
 his brother was concerned, pointed out to his mother that she 
 ought to lay it all before Desroches. Struck by the truth of 
 this remark, she and her son went next day, at six in the 
 morning, to call on Desroches in the Eue de Bussy. 
 
 The lavryer, as lean as his father before him, with a harsh 
 voice, a coarse skin, pitiless eyes, and a face like a ferref s 
 licking the blood' of murdered chickens off its lips, sprang like 
 a tiger when he heard of Giroudeau's call. 
 
 "Bless me, mother Bridau," he cried in his shrill, hard 
 voice, 'Tiow long will you continue to be the dupe of your 
 cursed scoundrel of a son? Do not give him a farthing. I 
 will be responsible for Philippe ; it is to save him in the future 
 that I shall leave him to the sentence of the superior Court. 
 You quail at the idea of his being found guilty, but God grant 
 that his counsel may fail to get him off. You, go to Issoudun ; 
 save your fortune and that of your children. If you do not 
 succeed, if your brother has made his will in that woman's 
 favor, and yon cannot get him to revoke it — ^well, at any rate, 
 collect the materials for proving undue influence, and I will 
 conduct the case. But there ! You are too good a woman 
 to know how to find out the grounds for such an action. In 
 the holidays I will go myself to Issoudun — ^if I possibly can." 
 
 And this "I will go myself" made the artist shiver in his 
 skin. 
 
 Desroches winked at Joseph as a sign that he should let 
 his mother go downstairs first, and detained him for an in- 
 stant. 
 
 "Your brother is a base wretch ; he, voluntarily or involun- 
 tarily, is the cause of the discovery of the conspiracy ; for the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 8T 
 
 rascal is so cunning that it is impossible to find out the truth 
 about it. Fool or traitor — I leave you to choose between 
 them. He will no doubt be placed under the eye of the de- 
 tective police; but that is all. Be quite easy; I alone know 
 even this much. Hurry off to Issoudun with your mother. 
 You have all your wits ; try to save the inheritance." 
 
 "Come, poor mother, Desroches is right," said Joseph, re- 
 joining Agathe on the stairs. "I have sold my pictures; let 
 us set out for le Berry,- as you have a fortnight's leave." 
 
 Having written to her godmother to announce their arrival, 
 Agathe and Joseph started next day for Issoudun, leaving 
 Philippe to his fate. The diligence went down the Eue de 
 I'Enfer to take the Orleans road. When Agathe saw the 
 Luxembourg, whither Philippe had been transferred, she 
 could not help saying : 
 
 "After all, but for the Allies he would not be there now !" 
 
 Many sons would have given an impatient shrug or smiled 
 in pity; but Joseph, who was alone with her in the coupe of 
 the diligence, threw his arms round her, and pressed her to 
 his heart, saying, "Oh, mother ! you are a mother as Eaphael 
 was a painter ! And you always will be a dear goose of a 
 mother !" 
 
 Aroused from her troubles by the amusement of the jour- 
 ney, Madame Bridau was presently obliged to think of the 
 purpose of her visit. Of course, she re-read Madame 
 Hochon's letter, which had so strongly excited Desroches. 
 Struck by such words as "concubine" and "hussy," traced 
 by the pen of an old woman of seventy, as pious as she was re- 
 spectable, to designate the woman who was absorbing Jean- 
 Jacques Eouget's fortune, while he himself was spoken of as a 
 poor creature, she began to wonder how her presence at Is- 
 soudun could avail to save her inheritance. Joseph, an artist, 
 poor and disinterested, knew little of the law, and his mother's 
 exclamation puzzled him. 
 
 "Before sending us off to protect our inheritance, our 
 friend Desroches would have done well to explain to us how 
 we can be robbed of it,'' said he. 
 
98 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "So far as my memory serves me — ^but my head was full 
 of the notion of Philippe in prison, without a pipe even per- 
 haps, and on the eve of standing his trial before the superior 
 court" — said Agathe, "I fancy Desroehes said we were to 
 collect materials for an action against undue influence if it 
 should appear that my brother has made his will in favor of 
 this — this — woman." 
 
 "A good joke for Desroehes !" cried Joseph, '^ell, if we 
 can make nothing of it, I will ask him to go himself." 
 
 "Do not let us rack our brains for nothing," said Agathe. 
 "When we are there, my godmother will advise us." 
 
 This conversation, held at the moment when, after changing 
 coach at Orleans, Madame Bridau and Joseph were entering 
 the district of Sologne, sufSciently betrays the incapacity of 
 both the artist and his mother to play the part the terrible 
 attorney had assigned to them. 
 
 But on returning to Issoudun after an absence of thirty 
 years, Agathe found the manners of the place so altered, that 
 a slight sketch of the life of the town is indispensable. With- 
 out such a picture, it would be difficult to understand Madame 
 Hochon's real heroism in trying to help her goddaughter, 
 or Jean-Jacques Rouget's extraordinary position. 
 
 Though the doctor had made his son regard Agathe as a 
 stranger, still, in a brother, there was something rather ex- 
 traordinary in living for thirty years without giving his sister 
 any sign of his existence. This silence must evidently have its 
 cause in some unusual circumstances which any relations but 
 Agathe and Joseph would long since have insisted on know- 
 ing. And, in fact, there was a certain connection between the 
 state of the town and the Bridaus' concerns, which will come 
 to light in the course of this narrative. 
 
 With all due respect to Paris, Issoudun is one of the oldest 
 towns in Prance. Notwithstanding historical prejudice, which 
 insists on regarding the Emperor Probus as the N"oah of Gaul, 
 Caesar writes of the fine wine of Champ-Fort (de Campo 
 Porti), one of the finest vintages of Issoudun. Eigord men- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 09 
 
 tions the town in terms which allow of no doubt as to its large 
 population and extensive commerce. Still, these two author- 
 ities would give Issoudun a moderate antiquity in comparison 
 with its really immense age. Excavations, lately made by a 
 learned archaeologist of the town. Monsieur Armand Peremet, 
 have led to the discovery of a basilica of the fifth century — 
 probably the only example in Prance — ^under the famous 
 tower of Issoudun. This church preserves in the materials 
 of which it is built the record of a previous civilization; for 
 the stones are those of a Eoman temple of earlier date. And, 
 indeed, the researches of this antiquary show that Issoudun, 
 like all French towns of which the name, ancient or modern, 
 ends in dun = dunum, contains in its name a certificate of 
 native origin. The syllable dun, attaching to every hill con- 
 secrated to the religion of the Druids, shows it to have been 
 a Celtic military and religious centre. The Eomans then 
 may have built at the foot of the Dun of the Gauls a temple 
 to Isis ; hence, according to Chaumon, the name of the town, 
 Is-sous-dun (Is[is]-under-hill) — ^Is' being an abbreviated 
 form of Isis. 
 
 Eichard Cceur de Lion undoubtedly built the famous tower, 
 where he coined money, over a basilica of the fifth century, 
 the third sanctuary of the third religion of this ancient city. 
 He made use of the church as a base which he needed to add 
 to the height of his ramparts, and preserved it by covering 
 it with his feudal fortifications as with a cloak. Issoudun 
 next became the seat of the transient authority of the Routiers 
 and Cottereaux, bands of brigands with which Henri II. op- 
 posed his son Eichard when he rebelled as Count of Poitou. 
 The history of Aquitaine, not having been written by the 
 Benedictines, will now probably never be written, as there are 
 no more Benedictines. Hence it is well to throw every pos- 
 sible light on these archseological obscurities whenever an 
 opportuity ofEers. 
 opportunity offers. 
 
 Issoudun in the use made of the little Tournemine river, 
 which has been raised for a considerable distance on an aque- 
 
100 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 duct several yards above the natural level of the Theols, the 
 stream that encircles the town. This work is, beyond ques- 
 tion, due to Eoman engineers. Finally, the quarter lying 
 to the north of the castle is intersected by a road known for 
 two thousand years as the Kue de Eome ; and the inhabitants 
 of the suburb, who are certainly of a quite distinct type in 
 race, blood, and features, call themselves the direct descend- 
 ants of the Eomans. They are almost all vine-dressers, and 
 singularly stern in their manners, owing, perhaps, to their 
 origin, and perhaps also to their triumph over the Cottereauz 
 and Eoutiers, whom they exterminated in the twelfth cen- 
 tury in the plain of Charost. 
 
 After the outbreak in 1830, France was too much agitated 
 to pay any attention to the rebellion among the vine-growers 
 of Issoudun, which was very serious, though the details were 
 never published, and for very good reasons. In the iirst place, 
 the citizens of Issoudun would not allow any troops to enter 
 the city. They chose to be responsible for it themselves, after 
 the usage and traditions of the citizen-class in the Middle 
 Ages. The authorities were forced to succumb to a populace 
 supported by six of seven thousand vine-dressers, who had 
 burnt all the archives and the tax-offices, and who went from 
 street to street, dragging about an excise officer of the octroi, 
 saying at each lamp-chain, "This is the place to hang him." — 
 The unhappy man was delivered from these wretches by the 
 National Guard, who saved his life by taking him to prison 
 on the pretext of trying him. The General of the forces only 
 got in by coming to terms with the vine-dressers, and it needed 
 some courage to walk through the mob ; for as soon as he ap- 
 peared outside the Town-hall a man of the Eoman suburb 
 put his pruning scythe — a large curved knife at the end of a 
 pole used for lopping trees — round his neck, crying out, "No 
 more tax-gatherers, or we yield nothing." And the laborer 
 would have pruned off the head of a man whom sixteen years 
 of fighting had spared, but for the prompt intervention of one 
 of the leaders of the rebellion, who obtained a promise that 
 the Chambers should be asked to suppress the "cellar-rats" 
 excise men. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 101 
 
 In the fourteenth century Issoudun could still boast of 
 seventeen thousand inhabitants, the remnant of a population 
 of nearly double that number in Eigord's time. Charles 
 VII. had a residence there; it still exists, and was known as 
 the Maison du roy so late as the eighteenth century. This 
 town, at that time the central mart of the wool-trade, sup- 
 plied the greater part of Europe with the raw material, be- 
 sides manufacturing it on a large scale into cloth, hats, and 
 excellent gloves, called Chevreautin. In the time of Louis 
 XIV. Issoudun, the birthplace of Baron and of Bourdaloue, 
 was always mentioned as a home of elegance, pure French, 
 and good society. Poupart, the priest, in his History of 
 Sancerre, speaks of the inhabitants of Issoudun as remark- 
 able among all the natives of le Berry for their acumen and 
 mother-wit. 
 
 At the present day this brilliancy and wit have totally dis- 
 appeared. Issoudun, though its wide extent bears witness 
 to its former importance, claims but twelve thousand souls, 
 including the vine-dressers of four extensive suburbs — Saint- 
 Pateme, Vilatte, Eome, and les Alouettes, little towns in 
 themselves. The inhabitants, like those of Versailles, have 
 elbow-room in the streets. Issoudun still is the centre of the 
 wool-trade of le Berry, a business now in danger from the im- 
 provements which are being generally introduced in the breed 
 of sheep which the Berrichon will not adopt. The vineyards 
 of Issoudun yield a wine which is consumed in two depart- 
 ments; and which, if it were only made as wine is made in 
 Burgundy and Gascony, would be one of the best vintages in 
 Prance. But, alas ! "We do as our fathers did !" — that is 
 the law of the land. So the vine-growers leave the stalks in 
 the liquor during fermentation, which ruins the flavor of a 
 wine that might be the source of renewed wealth, and an 
 opening for the industry of the district. Thanks to the rough- 
 ness communicated to the wine by the wood, and which is said 
 to diminish with age, it may be kept for a century! This 
 reason, assigned by the vine-grower, is important enough to 
 the science of the manufacture to be recorded here; Guillaume 
 
102 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 le Breton has, in fact, celebrated this property in a few lines 
 in his PMlippide. 
 
 Thus the decay of Issoudim is accounted for by its per- 
 verse stagnation, carried to imbecility, as one single fact 
 will show. When the direct road was contemplated from 
 Paris to Toulouse, it was obvious that it should run from 
 Vierzon to Chateauroux, past Issoudun. This is shorter than 
 the line actually taken by Vatan. But the bigwigs of the 
 town, and the Municipal Council of Issoudun — which, it is 
 said, still sits — ^petitioned for its passing through Vatan; 
 objecting that if their town lay on the highroad, the price 
 of provisions would rise, and they might be obliged to pay 
 thirty sous for a fowl. 
 
 No analogous act is recorded of any land but the wildest 
 districts of Sardinia, a country formerly so populous and 
 rich, and now so deserted. When King Charles Albert, with 
 a laudable intent to civilize the land, proposed to connect 
 Sassari, the second town in the island, with Cagliari, by a fine 
 and magnificent highroad, the only road existing in this 
 wild Savanna, the direct line was planned to pass Bonorva, 
 a district inhabited by a refractory race very like our subject 
 Arab tribes, and, in fact, descended from the Moors. When 
 they saw themselves within an ace of being caught by civiliza- 
 tion, the savages of Bonorva, without taking the trouble to 
 discuss the matter, signified their opposition to the plan. The 
 Government disregarded this announcement. The first engi- 
 neer who attempted to take a bee-line had a bullet in his 
 brain, and died by his stake. ISTo questions were asked; but 
 the road made a bend that lengthens it by eight leagues. 
 
 At Issoudun the increasingly low price of the wine, all 
 consumed on the spot, while gratifying the citizen's wish to 
 live cheaply, is bringing about the ruin of the vine-growers, 
 who are more and more oppressed by the cost of cultivation 
 and the excise; in the same way, ruin threatens the wool- 
 trade of the district, in consequence of the impossibility of 
 improving the breed of sheep. The country folks have a 
 rooted horror of every kind of change, even of that which 
 may serve their interests. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 103 
 
 A traveler from Paris found a laborer in the country who 
 was dining off an enormous quantity of bread, cheese, and 
 vegetables. He proved to him that by substituting a certain 
 proportion of meat he would be nourished better and cheaper, 
 he would do more work, and waste his capital of strength 
 more slowly. The man of Berry admitted the accuracy of the 
 calculation. — "But only consider the jaw, sir," said he. — "The 
 Jaw?" — "Why, yes, sir; how people would tattle!" 
 
 "He would have been the talk of the district," said the 
 owner of the land on which the incident occurred. "They 
 would think he was as rich as a townsman. In short, he is 
 afraid of public opinion, of being pointed at, of being sup- 
 posed to be aUing or ill. — That is what we all are in this part 
 of the world." 
 
 Country-town folk often echo these last words with a feeling 
 of covert pride. 
 
 And while ignorance and routine are insuperable in the 
 country, where the peasantry are left to themselves, Issoudun, 
 as a town, has settled into absolute social stagnation. Being 
 obliged to make head against waning fortunes by sordid 
 economy, each family lives for itself alone. Again, the society 
 there is now for ever bereft of the contrast that gives distinc- 
 tion to manners. The town is no longer the scene of that 
 antagonism of two classes which gave vitality to the Italian 
 states in the Middle Ages. Issoudun has no men of birth. 
 The Cottereaux, the Eoutiers, the Jacquerie, the religious 
 wars, and the Eevolution have completely exterminated the 
 nobility. The town is very proud of this triumph. To keep 
 down the cost of living, Issoudun has persistently refused to 
 be made a garrison town ; thus it has lost that means of inter- 
 course with the times, besides losing the profit that is derived 
 from the presence of the military. 
 
 Until 1756 Issoudun was one of the gayest of garrison 
 towns. A judicial drama, which was the talk of France 
 at that time, deprived the town of its soldiery; the case of 
 the Lieutenant-General of the district against the Marquis 
 de Chapt, whose son, a dragoon ofBcer, was put to death, 
 
104 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 justly perhaps, but traitorously, for some amorous misde- 
 meanor. 
 
 The occupation by the 44th half -brigade, forced upon it 
 during the civil war, was not such as to reconcile the in- 
 habitants to the soldier tribe. 
 
 Bourges, of which the population is annually diminish- 
 ing, is a victim to the same social atrophy. Vitality is fail- 
 ing in these large bodies. The State is no doubt to blame. 
 It is the duty of a Government to detect such sores in the 
 body politic, and to remedy them by sending men of energy 
 to the affected spots to change the state of things. Alas! 
 far from this, such fatal and funereal peacefulness is a source 
 of satisfaction! Besides, how it is possible to send fresh 
 chiefs or capable judges? Who nowadays would care to be 
 buried in a district where he can earn no credit for the good 
 to be done ? If by chance an ambitious outsider is appointed 
 to such a place, he is soon swamped by the power of inertia, 
 and tunes himself to the pitch of tlae dreadful provincial 
 life. Issoudun would have benumbed Napoleon. 
 
 As a result of this state of things, the district of Issoudun, 
 in 1823, was under the administration of men all natives of le 
 Berry. Government authority was therefore nil or impotent, 
 excepting in those cases, of course very rare, of which the 
 evident importance demands the intervention of the law. 
 Monsieur Mouilleron, the public prosecutor, was related to 
 everybody, and his deputy belonged to a family in the town. 
 The President of the Criminal Court, before he had risen to 
 such dignity, had made himself famous by one of those 
 speeches which, in the provinces, crown a man with a fool's 
 cap for the rest of his life. At the end of a ease for the 
 prosecution which would entail capital punishment, he said to 
 the prisoner: "My poor Pierre, the case is clear; you will 
 have your head cut off. Let that be a lesson to you." The 
 superintendent of police, who had held the post ever since the 
 Eestoration, had relations all over the district. 
 
 Finally, not only had religion no influence whatever, but 
 the cure was not respected. The townsfolk — ^Liberals, back- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 105 
 
 biters, and ignorant — repeated more or less absurd stories 
 about the poor man's conduct to his housekeeper. The chil- 
 dren went to his catechizing all the same, and were admitted 
 to their first Communion; all the same, there was a school; 
 Mass was said and festivals were kept; the taxes were paid, 
 the only thing Paris requires of the provinces ; and the Maire 
 passed resolutions ; but all these acts of social life were mere 
 matters of routine. Thus the flabbiness of official life was 
 in admirable harmony with the moral and intellectual con- 
 dition of the place. The sequel of this narrative will show 
 the results of a state of things less exceptional than might be 
 supposed. Many towns in France, especially in the south, 
 are very like Issoudun. And the state to which the triumph 
 of the middle class had brought this town — the chief town of 
 its district (or arrondissement) — awaits all France, and even 
 Paris, if the citizen class continues to be master of the home 
 and foreign policy of our country. 
 
 Now a word as to the topography of Issoudun. The town 
 extends north and south on a hillside that curves towards the 
 Chateauroux road. At the foot of the slope a canal was con- 
 structed at the time when the place was prosperous, to supply 
 the factories, or to flood the trenches below the ramparts ; it 
 is known as la Riviere forces, the Borrowed Stream, its waters 
 being diverted from the Theols. The borrowed stream forms 
 an artificial branch, returning to the natural river below the 
 Eoman suburb at a point where it is met by the Tournemine 
 and some other affluents. These little brooks of rushing 
 water irrigate meadows of some extent, which lie on all sides 
 below the yellow or white hills closely dotted with black 
 specks, for such is the aspect of the vine-land of Issoudun dur- 
 ing seven months of the year. The vine-dressers layer the 
 vines every year, and leave nothing but a hideous stump, with- 
 out any prop, at the bottom of a funnel of earth. Thus, on 
 arriving from Vierzon, Vatan, or Chateauroux, the eye, 
 wearied by the monotonous plain, is agreeably surprised by the 
 appearance of the meadowland of Issoudun, the oasis of this 
 part of the country, supplying vegetables for ten leagues 
 
106 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 round. Below the suburb of Eome stretches one vast market- 
 garden exclusively devoted to kitchen produce, and divided 
 into the Upper and Lower Saltan. 
 
 A broad, long avenue, with side-walks planted with poplars, 
 leads from the town, across the fields, to an ancient convent 
 called Prapesle where an English garden — unique in the 
 district — bears the high-sounding name of Tivoli. Here, on 
 Sundays, fond couples wander to breathe their confidences. 
 
 Traces of the former splendor of Issoudun can, of course, 
 be discerned by an attentive observer, and the most conspicu- 
 ous are the divisions of the town. The castle, which of old 
 was a town of itself, with its walls and moats, constitutes a 
 distinct quarter even now, entered only through the old gates, 
 or quitted by three bridges over the arms of the two rivers ; this 
 alone has the aspect of an old town. The walls still show 
 their formidable masonry, here and there crowned with houses. 
 Above the castle rises the tower which was the citadel. The 
 conqueror of the town lying round these two fortified strong- 
 holds had still to take both the tower and the castle. Nor did 
 the mastery of the castle secure that of the tower. The sub- 
 urb of Saint-Paterne beyond the tower, shaped like a palette, 
 and encroaching on the fields, is so large that it must in early 
 ages have been the original township. Since the Middle Ages 
 Issoudun, like Paris, has climbed a hill and spread outside 
 the tower and the castle. 
 
 In 1822 this notion still derived some certainty from the 
 existence of the beautiful Church of Saint-Paterne, only re- 
 cently pulled down by the son of the man who purchased it 
 from the nation. This building, one of the prettiest ex- 
 amples of Eomanesque Church architecture in Prance, was 
 destroyed without any one having drawn the porch front, 
 which was in perfect preservation. The only voice that was 
 raised to save the building found no echo, neither in the town 
 nor in the department. 
 
 Though the castle-precincts of Issoudun have all the char- 
 acter of an old place, with its narrow streets and ancient 
 houses, the town, properly so called, which was taken and burnt 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 107 
 
 again and again at different periods, and especially during 
 the Fronde, when it was burnt to the ground, has now a 
 modern aspect. Broad streets, as compared with the other 
 quarters, and well-built houses form a contrast with the an- 
 cient castle striking enough to have earned Issoudun, in some 
 geographies, the epithet of pretty. 
 
 In a town thus constituted, devoid even of commercial 
 activity, of taste for the arts, of scientific interest, where 
 every one sits at home, it could not but happen — and it did in 
 fact happen — ^that at the time of the Eestoration, in 1816, 
 when the war was over, many of the young men of the place 
 had no career before them, and did not know what to do with 
 themselves pending their marriage, or their coming into their 
 parents' money. Bored to death at home, these young people 
 found no means of diversion in the town; and since, as the 
 proverb has it, young men must sow their wild oats, they per- 
 formed the operation at the expense of the town itself. It 
 was difficult to do much by broad daylight; they would have 
 been recognized, and, the cup of their misdemeanors once full, 
 they would at their first serious offence have found them- 
 selves in the hands of the police; so they very judiciously 
 preferred to play their mischievous pranks at night. And 
 thus, among these old ruins left by so many departed phases 
 of civilization, a vestige of the farcical spirit that character- 
 ized the manners of the past flashed like a dying flame. 
 These young men took their pleasure as Charles IX. and his 
 courtiers, or Henry V. and his companions, were wont to take 
 theirs, in a form of amusement common of old in many 
 provincial towns. 
 
 Having become confederates by their need of mutual help 
 and defence and the desire to invent practical jokes, the 
 friction of wits developed among them a pitch of mischievous- 
 ness which is natural to the young, and may be noticed even 
 in animals. Their confederacy gave them also the little en- 
 joyment that comes of the mystery of a standing conspiracy. 
 They called themselves "The Knights of Idlesse." All through 
 the day these young monkeys were little saints ; they affected 
 
108 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 excessive quietude; besides, they slept late in the mornings 
 after nights when they had carried out some cruel trick. 
 The Knights of Idlesse began by common practical jokes, such 
 as unhooking and changing shop-signs, ringing at doors, hurl- 
 ing a cask left outside a door into a neighbor's cellar with a 
 prodigious clatter, and waking the folks by a noise like the 
 explosion of a mine. At Issoudun, as in many places, the way 
 into the cellars is through a trap-door close to the entrance 
 from the street, closed by a huge lid with hinges, and fastened 
 with a heavy padlock. These Bad Boys, at the end of 1816, 
 had not got beyond the practical jokes played everywhere by 
 young men and lads. But in January 1817 the Order of 
 Idlesse had a Grand Master, and distinguished itself by cer- 
 tain pranks which until 1823 were the terror of Issoudun, or, 
 at any rate, kept the citizens and craftsmen in perpetual 
 alarms. 
 
 This leader was one Maxence Gilet, called Max for short; 
 and his antecedents, no less than his strength and youth, 
 destined him for the part. Maxence Gilet was supposed to be 
 the natural son of Lousteau, Madame Hoehon's brother, the 
 sub-delegate whose gallantries had left many memorials, and 
 who had incurred, as we know. Doctor Eouget's hatred a 
 propos to Agathe's birth. But before this quarrel the friend- 
 ship between the two men had been so close that, to use a phrase 
 of the country and period, where one went the other would go. 
 So it was always said that Max might just as well be the 
 doctor's son as Lousteau's ; but he belonged to neither of them, 
 for his father was a handsome young dragoon ofBcer in 
 garrison at Bourges. However, as a consequence of their 
 intimacy, happily for the boy, the two men were always 
 disputing for the paternity. 
 
 Max's mother, the wife of a clog-maker in the Eoman sub- 
 urb, was for her soul's destruction amazingly beautiful, with 
 the beauty of a true Trasteverina, the only thing she had to 
 bequeath to her boy. Madame Gilet, before Max's birth in 
 1788, had long pined for this boon from heaven, which was 
 maliciously ascribed to the gallantries of the two men.— no 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 109 
 
 doubt to set them at loggerheads. Gilet, a hardened old sot, 
 winked at his wife's misconduct by such collusion and toler- 
 ance as are not exceptional in the lowest class. The woman 
 herself, hoping to secure their protection for the child, took 
 good care not to enlighten the supposed fathers. In Paris 
 she would have been a millionaire; at Issoudun she sometimes 
 was well off., sometimes wretchedly poor, and at last scorned by 
 all. 
 
 Madame Hochon, Monsieur Lousteau's sister, paid about 
 ten crowns a year towards Max's schooling. This liberality, 
 which Madame Hochon could not allow herself in conse- 
 quence of her husband's avarice, was naturally attributed 
 to her brother, then living at Sancerre. When Doctor Eouget, 
 whose son was not a success, observed how handsome Max was, 
 he paid the school expenses of the "young rascal," as he 
 called him, till 1805. As Lousteau had died in 1800, and the 
 doctor seemed to gratify a feeling of pride by paying the boy's 
 schooling for five years, the question of paternity remained 
 unsettled. 
 
 Indeed, Maxenee Gilet, the cause of many jests, was soon 
 forgotten. And this is his story. In 1806, a year after 
 Doctor Eouget's death, the boy, who seemed bom to a life of 
 adventure, and who was indeed gifted with extraordinary 
 strength and agility, had committed a number of more or less 
 rash acts of mischief. He and Monsieur Hochon's grand- 
 sons were already in league to drive the tradesf oiks to frenzy ; 
 he gathered all the neighbors' fruit before the owners, making 
 nothing of scaling a wall. This imp had no match in athletic 
 exercises; he played prisoner's base to perfection; he could 
 have coursed and caught a hare. He had an eye worthy of 
 Leather-Stocking, and had a passion for sport. Instead of 
 doing his lessons, he passed all his time in shooting at a mark. 
 He spent all the money he could extract from the old doctor 
 in buying powder and shot for a worn-out pistol given to him 
 by Gilet the clog-maker. Now, in the autumn of 1806, Max, 
 by this time seventeen, committed an involuntary murder 
 one evening at nightfall by coming upon a young woman in 
 
no A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 her garden, where he was stealing fruit, and frightening her 
 into a miscarriage. Being threatened by the clog-maker 
 with the guillotine — the old man no doubt wanted to be rid of 
 him — Max ran off, and never stopped till he reached Bourges, 
 joined a regiment on the march to Spain, and there enlisted. 
 No further notice was taken of the young woman's death. 
 
 A lad of Max's disposition was certain to distinguish him- 
 self; and he did so, with such effect that, after three cam- 
 paigns, he returned as a captain, for the little learning he had 
 picked up had served him well. In 1809, in Portugal, he was 
 left for dead on an English "battery which his company had 
 taken, but could not hold. Max, a prisoner, was sent by the 
 English to the Spanish hulks at Cabrera, the worst of all. 
 
 An application was indeed made on his behalf to the Em- 
 peror for the Cross of the Legion of Honor and the rank of 
 Major, but Napoleon was just then in Austria; he kept all 
 his favors for the dashing actions that were done under his 
 own eye ; he had no liking for men who were taken prisoners, 
 and was not best pleased with the state of affairs in Portugal. 
 
 Max was left on the hulks from 1810 to 1814. In the 
 course of those four years he was utterly demoralized ; for the 
 hulks were the gaUeys minus the crime and disgrace. In the 
 first place, to secure his own freedom of action and defend 
 himself against the corruption that was rampant in those 
 foul prisons, unworthy of any civilized nation, the handsome 
 young captain killed in duels — for duels were fought on a 
 space six yards square — seven bullies and tyrants of whom he 
 rid his ship, to the great joy of their victims. Max reigned in 
 the hulk, thanks to the prodigious skill he acquired in han- 
 dling his weapons, to his personal strength and cleverness. But 
 he, in his turn, committed some arbitrary acts, and had ad- 
 herents who took his part and became his flatterers. In this 
 school of misery, where embittered nature dreamed only of 
 revenge, and where the sophistries hatched in these seething 
 brains found a warrant for every evil purpose. Max became 
 utterly depraved. He listened to the counsel of those who 
 aimed at fortune at any price, and did not shrink from 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 111 
 
 criminal deeds so long as they could be committed without 
 proof. 
 
 At last, at the peace, he was released, perverted though 
 guiltless, capable of becoming a great politician in pubUe 
 life, or a scoundrel in private life, as circumstances might 
 direct. 
 
 On his return to Issoudun he heard of the deplorable end of 
 his parents. Like all people who give way to their passions, 
 and lead, as the saying goes, a short life and a merry one, the 
 Gilets had died in hospital in the most dire poverty. Almost 
 immediately after the news of Napoleon's landing at Cannes 
 ran through France, Max thought he could not do better than 
 go to Paris and ask for his Cross and his promotion. The 
 Marshal who was then at the head of the War Office re- 
 membered Captain Gilet's brave conduct in Portugal ; he gave 
 him his commission with the ranlc of Major of Infantry ; but 
 he could not obtain the Cross for him. "The Emperor says 
 you will be sure to win it in the first fight," said the Marshal. 
 And, in fact, the Emperor put down the brave Captain's 
 name for that honor after the battle of Fleurus, where Gilet 
 distinguished himself. After the battle of Waterloo, Gilet 
 retired with the army on the Loire. When the revision took 
 place, Marshal Feltre would grant him neither his promotion 
 nor his Cross. 
 
 Napoleon's soldier came home to Issoudun in a state of 
 exasperation that may be easily imagined; he refused to 
 serve at aU without his Cross and the rank of Major. The 
 authorities thought this a monstrous demand from a young 
 man of five-and-twenty, who at that rate might be a Colonel 
 at thirty. So Max sent in his papers. Thus the Major — for 
 the Bonapartists recognized among themselves the promotions 
 conferred in 1815 — ^lost the pittance designated as half-pay 
 that was doled out to the officers of the army of the Loire. 
 At the sight of this handsome young fellow, whose whole pos- 
 sessions were twenty napoleons, Issoudun bestirred itself in 
 his favor, and the Maire gave him a place in his office with a 
 salary of six hundred francs. Max, after holding this ap- 
 
112 A BAOHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 pointment for about six months, retired of his own accord, 
 and was succeeded by a captain named Carpentier, who, like 
 himself, had remained faithful to Napoleon. 
 
 Gilet, already Grand Master of the Knights of Idlesse, 
 had entered on a life which lost him the regard of the best 
 families in the town ; not that they said anything to him, for 
 he was violent, and dreaded by everybody, even by those officers 
 of the old army who had, like him, refused to serve, and had 
 come home to plant cabbages in le Berry. 
 
 The small affection felt for the Bourbons by the good folks 
 of Issoudun is not surprising aftei' what has here been said. 
 And, in proportion to its size, there were more Bonapartists 
 in this little town than anywhere else. As is well known, 
 almost all the Bonapartists became Liberals. At Issoudun, 
 or in the neighborhood, there were perhaps a dozen ofScers 
 in the same position as Maxence, who liked him so well as to 
 regard him as their chief; with the sole exception of Car- 
 pentier, his successor, and of a certain Monsieur Mignomiet, 
 ex-captain of the Artillery of the Guard. Carpentier, a 
 cavalry officer, who had risen from the ranks, very soon 
 married, thus allying himself with one of the most important 
 families of the town — that of Borniche-Herau. Mignonnet, 
 a student of the Ecole Poly technique, had belonged to a corps 
 which fancies itself superior to all others. There were in the 
 Imperial armies two tones of feeling among the military. A 
 strong party had an immense contempt for the mere citizen, 
 the piquin, the plain-clothes-man, such as the noble felt for 
 the villein, the conquering race for the conquered. These 
 were not over-strict in observing the code of honor in their 
 intercourse with civilians, and a man who had cut down a 
 bourgeois was not too severely blamed. The others, and 
 among them the artillery, as a result perhaps of its republican- 
 ism, did not adopt this view, which tended indeed to divide 
 France into two parts — Military France and Civilian France. 
 Hence, though Major Potel and Captain Eenard, two officers 
 living in the Eoman quarter, whose views as to civilians never 
 varied, were Maxence Gilet's friends through thick and thin, 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 113 
 
 Major Mignonnet and Captain Carpentier sided with the 
 townsfolks in regarding Max's conduct as unworthy of an 
 "officer and a gentleman." 
 
 Major Mignonnet, a little dry man of much dignity, gave 
 his mind to the problems which the steam-engine seemed likely 
 to solve, and lived very simply in the quiet society of Monsieur 
 and Madame Carpentier. His gentle manners and scientific 
 pursuits gained him the consideration of the whole town. 
 And it was currently said that these two gentlemen were a 
 very dijferent sort from Major Potel and Captain Eenard, 
 Mazence, and the rest who frequented the Cafe Militaire and 
 kept up the rough manners and traditions of the Empire. 
 
 Thus, at the time when Madame Bridau revisited Issoudun, 
 Mas was an outlaw from the citizen world. The young fellow 
 indeed so far sentenced himself that he never intruded himself 
 on the circle known as the club, and did not complain of the 
 reprobation of which he was the object, though he was the 
 youngest, and smartest, and best-dressed man in Issoudun, 
 spent a good deai of money, and even had a horse — a creature 
 as strange at Issoudun as Lord Byron's was at Venice. 
 
 It will presently be seen how it had come to pass that 
 Maxenee, poor and unholpen, had been enabled to become the 
 man of fashion of Issoudun; for these disgraceful means, 
 which earned him the contempt of timid or pious persons, were 
 linked with the interests which had brought Agathe and 
 Joseph from Paris. To judge from his braggart bearing 
 and the expression of his countenance. Max cared little enough 
 for public opinion; he no doubt counted on being revenged 
 some day, and reigning over those who now scorned him. 
 
 Besides, though the better class might misprize him, the 
 admiration his character commanded among the populace was 
 a counterpoise to that opinion; his courage, his fine appear- 
 ance, his decisiveness, delighted the mob; but, indeed, his 
 depravity was not known to them, nor was its extent suspected 
 even by the townsfolk. 
 
 Max, at Issoudun, played a part very similar to that of the 
 Armorer in The Fair Maid of Perth; he was the champion 
 8 
 
114 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 of Bonaparte and the Opposition. He was looked to on 
 great occasions as the good men of Perth looked to Smith. 
 A fray gave the hero and the victim of the hundred days his 
 opportunity. 
 
 In 1819 a battalion commanded by some Eoyalist officers, 
 lads just out of Maison Eouge, marched through Issoudun on 
 their way to relieve the garrison at Bourges. Not knowing 
 what to do in such a constitutional town, the officer went to 
 pass the time at the Cafe Militaire. There is such a resort 
 for soldiers in every provincial town. That of Issoudun, 
 standing in a corner of the parade-ground under the walls, 
 and kept by the widow of an officer, naturally served as a sort 
 of club for the Bonapartists of the place, half -pay officers and 
 others who were of Max's way of thinking, and who were 
 allowed, by the feeling of the town, to display their adoration 
 of the Emperor. After 1816 a banquet was held at Issoudun 
 every year to celebrate the anniversary of ITapoleon's corona- 
 tion. 
 
 The first three Eoyalists who dropped in asked for news- 
 papers, naming, among others, the Quotidienne and the Dra- 
 peau llanc. But the opinions of the town, and especially of 
 the Cafe Militaire, did not encourage Eoyalist newspapers. 
 The Cafe could only produce the Commerce, the name assumed 
 for a few years by the Constitutionnel when that paper was 
 suppressed by law. But since, in the first number published 
 under that title, its leader opened with these words, "The 
 Commerce is essentially constitutional in its views," it was still 
 familiarly called the Constitutionnel. Every subscriber at 
 once saw the joke which bid them pay no attention to the 
 name over the door ; the wine would be of the old tap. 
 
 The stout mistress perched at her desk told the Eoyalists 
 that she had not the papers they asked for. 
 
 'What papers do you take then?" said one of the officers, 
 a captain. 
 
 The waiter, a small youth in a blue cloth jacket and a 
 coarse linen apron, produced the Commerce. 
 
 "Oh! so that is your paper! Have you no other?" 
 
" And we have spit upon it, 
 three Royalists, rising 
 
 too," replied the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 115 
 
 "No/' said the waiter, "that is the only one." 
 
 The Captain tore the hostile sheet into fragments, threw 
 it on the iioor, and spat upon it, saying, "Bring the dominoes !" 
 
 Within ten minutes news of the insult offered to the Con- 
 stitutional Opposition and Liberalism generally in the person 
 of the sacrosanct paper, which waged war on the priesthood 
 with the courage and wit we all know, was flying along the 
 streets and flashing like light into every house ; every one was 
 telling the tale. The same sentence rose to every lip : "Run 
 and tell Max !" 
 
 Max was soon informed. The officers had not finished 
 their game of dominoes when Max, accompanied by Major 
 Potel and Captain Eenard, entered the Cafe; while a fol- 
 lowing of thirty young fellows, eager to see the end of the 
 matter, remained, for the most part, outside in groups on the 
 Parade. The Cafe soon was full. 
 
 "Waiter, bring me my paper," said Max very quietly. 
 Then a little comedy was played. The stout woman said in 
 a timid and conciliatory tone : 
 
 "I have lent it, Captain." 
 
 "Go and fetch it !" cried one of Max's companions. 
 
 "Cannot you do without the paper?" said the waiter. 
 "We have not got it." 
 
 The young officers were laughing and stealing side-glances 
 at the town party. 
 
 "It is torn up !" exclaimed a young Bonapartist, looking 
 at the Captain's feet. 
 
 "Who has dared to tear up the newspaper ?" asked Max in 
 a voice of thunder, his eyes flashing, and his arms crossed as 
 he rose. 
 
 "And we have spit upon it too," replied the three Eoyalists, 
 rising and facing Max. 
 
 "You have insulted the whole town!" said Max, turning 
 pale. 
 
 "Well, what of that ?" said the youngest of the three. 
 
 With a neatness, a boldness, and a swiftness which the 
 young men could not guard against, Max dealt two slaps to 
 the foremost man as they stood, saying : 
 
116 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Do you understand Preneli?" 
 
 They went out to fight in the Allee de PrapeslO;, three 
 against three. Potel and Eenard would not hear of allow- 
 ing Max to fight it out alone with the Eoyalists. Max killed 
 his man ; Potel wounded Ms so severely that the unhappy lad, 
 a man of good birth, died next day in the hospital, whither 
 they carried him. As for the third, he got off with a sword- 
 cut, and wounded Captain Eenard, his opponent. The bat- 
 talion went on to Bourges that night. This affair, much 
 talked about in the country, crowned Maxence G-ilet as a hero. 
 
 The Knights of Idlesse, all young — the eldest was not five- 
 and-twenty — admired Maxence. Some of them, far from 
 sharing the rigid prudery of their families with regard to 
 Max, envied him greatly, and thought him a very fortunate 
 man. Under such a leader the Order did wonders. Prom 
 the month of January 1817 not a week passed but the town 
 was in a pother over some fresh prank. Max, as a point of 
 honor, imposed certain conditions on the Knights; by-laws 
 were drawn up. These young devils became as prompt as 
 disciples of Amoros, as tough as kites, skilled in every kind 
 of exercise, as strong and as dexterous as malefactors. They 
 were adepts in the business of creeping over roofs, scaling 
 house-walls, jumping and walking without a sound, spreading 
 mortar, and building up doors. They had an arsenal of 
 ladders, ropes, tools, and disguises. The Knights of Idlesse, 
 in short, achieved the very ideal of ingenious mischief, not 
 only in the execution, but in the invention of the tricks they 
 played. They were at last inspired by that genius of malig- 
 nity in which Panurge took such delight, which provokes every 
 one to laugh, and makes the victim so ridiculous that he dare 
 not complain. The men, all respectably connected, had, of 
 course, means of information in private houses which enabled 
 them to obtain such intelligence as could serve them in the 
 perpetration of their rascality. 
 
 One very cold night these demons incarnate carried a 
 large stove out into the courtyard of a house, and stoked 
 it so effectually that the fire lasted till morning. Then it 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 117 
 
 was rumored in the town that Monsieur So-and-so (a noted 
 miser !) had been, trying to warm his yard. 
 
 Sometimes they lay in ambush in the High Street, or the 
 Eue Basse, the two arteries, as it were, of the town, into 
 which run a great number of smaller cross streets. Squat- 
 ting, each at the corner of a side street, under the wall, putting 
 their heads out when every household was in its first sleep, 
 they would shout in a tone of terror from one end of the town 
 to the other : 
 
 ''What is the matter? Oh, what is the matter?" The re- 
 peated question would rouse the citizens, who soon appeared 
 in their shirts and night-caps, candle in hand, catechizing 
 each other, and holding the strangest colloquies with the 
 most bewildered faces ever seen. 
 
 There was a poor bookbinder, very old, who believed in 
 demons. Like most provincial artisans, he worked in a 
 little low shop. The Knights, disguised as devils, invaded 
 his shop at night, put him into his waste-paper box, and left 
 him shrieking like three men at the stake. The poor man 
 roused aU the neighbors, to whom he related these apparitions 
 of Lucifer, and the neighbors could never undeceive him. 
 The binder very nearly went mad. 
 
 In the depths of a severe winter the confederates de- 
 molished the chimney-pot of the tax-collector, and replaced it 
 in the course of the night ; it was exactly the same ; they made 
 no noise and left not the slightest trace of their work. The 
 chimney was, however, so arranged inside as to fill the room 
 with smoke. The tax-collector endured this for two months 
 before discovering why his chimney, which had always worked 
 properly and given him perfect satisfaction, should play such 
 tricks; and he had to reconstruct it. 
 
 One day they stuffed trusses of straw sprinkled with 
 sulphur, and greasy paper into the chimney of an old bigot, 
 a friend of Madame Hochon's. l^ext morning, on lighting 
 her fire, the poor old lady, a quiet, gentle creature, thought 
 she had lighted a volcano. The firemen came, the whole town 
 rushed in; and as there were among the firemen some of the 
 
118 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Knights of Idlesse, they deluged the poor soul's house, and put 
 her in fear of drowning after the fear of fire. She fell ill of 
 the shock. 
 
 When they wished to keep any one up all night, under 
 arms and in mortal terror, they sent anonymous letters warn- 
 ing him of a plan to rob him; then they crept one by one 
 under his wall or past his windows whistling signals to each 
 other. 
 
 One of their most successful hoaxes, which amused the 
 town hugely, and is talked of to this day, was sending to all 
 the possible heirs of a very miserly old woman, who was ex- 
 pected to leave a large fortune, a few lines announcing her 
 death, and inviting them to come punctually at a certain 
 hour, when seals would be affixed. About eighty persons 
 arrived from Vatan, Saint-Plorent, Vierzon, and the neigh- 
 borhood, all in deep mourning, but in very good spirits — men 
 with their wives, widows with their sons, children with their 
 parents, some in gigs, some in basket-carriages, some in old 
 tax-carts. Imagine the scenes between the old lady's ser- 
 vant and the first-comers! Then the consultations at the 
 lawyer's ! — It was like a riot in the town. 
 
 At last one day the Sous-prefet began to think this state of 
 things intolerable, all the more so because it was impossible to 
 ascertain who ventured to perpetrate these pleasantries. Sus- 
 picion, indeed, rested on the guilty youths; but as the 
 National Guard was at that time a mere name at Issoudun, 
 as there was no garrison, and as the lieutenant of police had 
 not more than eight gendarmes at his command, and kept 
 no patrol, it was impossible to obtain proofs. The Sous- 
 prefet was at once placed on "the order of the night," to be 
 treated as obnoxious. This functionary was in the habit of 
 eating two new-laid eggs for breakfast. He kept fowls in 
 his yard, and he crovmed his mania for eating new-laid eggs 
 by insisting on cooking them himself. Neither his wife, 
 nor the maid, nor any one, according to him, could cook an 
 egg as it ought to be done; he watched the clock, and 
 boasted that in this particular he could beat all the world. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 119 
 
 For two years he had boiled his own eggs with a success that 
 was the subject of much jesting. Then, every night for a 
 month the eggs were taken from his hens and hard-boiled 
 eggs put in their place. The poor man was at his wit's end, 
 and lost his reputation as the egg-boiling Sous-prefet. 
 Finally, he had something else for breakfast. 
 
 Still, he never suspected the Knights of Idlesse; the trick 
 was too neatly done. Max hit on a plan for greasing his 
 stove-pipes every night with oil saturated with such vile 
 odors that it was impossible to live in the house. ISTor was 
 this all ; one morning his wife, wishing to attend mass, found 
 her shawl stuck together inside by some glue so tenacious that 
 she was obliged to go without it. The ofBcial begged to be 
 transferred. His cowardice and submission established be- 
 yond question the occult and farcial sway of the Knights of 
 Idlesse. 
 
 Between the Kue des Minimes and the Place Misere there 
 existed at that time a part of the town enclosed between the 
 Borrowed Stream at the bottom and the rampart above — ^the 
 part extending from the Parade to the crockery market. 
 This sort of misshapen square was occupied by wretched- 
 looking houses, closely packed and divided by alleys so narrow 
 that two persons could not walk abreast. This part of the 
 town, a sort of Court of Miracles, was inhabited by poor 
 people, or such as carried on the least profitable trades, 
 lodging in the hovels and wretched tenements expressively des- 
 ignated as maison horgnes — ^purblind houses. It was, no 
 doubt, at all times a spot accursed, the den of evil livers, for 
 one of these lanes is called Eue du Bourreau, or Hangman's 
 Alley. It is certain that the town executioner had here his 
 house, with its red door, for more than five centuries. The 
 executioner's man lives there still, if public report may be 
 believed, for the townspeople never see him. None but the 
 vine-dressers keep up any communication with this mysteri- 
 ous personage, who inherits from his predecessors the gift of 
 healing fractures and wounds. The women of the town held 
 high festival here of old, when the place gave itself the airs 
 
120 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 of a capital. Here dwelt the dealers in second-hand articles, 
 which never seem to find a buyer, old-clothes vendors, with 
 their malodorous display ; in short, all the mongrel population 
 that herds in some such corner of almost every town, under 
 the dominion of one or two Jews. 
 
 At the corner of one of these dark passages, in the least 
 dead-alive part of the suburb, there was, from 1815 till 1833, 
 and perhaps even later, a beer-shop kept by a woman known 
 as Mother Cognette. The beer-shop occupied a house not 
 ill built of courses of white stone filled in with rubble and 
 mortar, and consisting of one story and an attic. Over the 
 door shone an immense branch of a fir-tree gleaming like 
 Florentine bronze. As if this "bush" were not sufficiently 
 explicit, the eye was caught by a blue board, fastened to the 
 architrave, on which the words "Good March beer" werelegible 
 above a picture representing a soldier ofiEering to a very lightly 
 draped woman a jet of foam spouting from a jug into the 
 glass she holds, and forming a curve like the arch of a bridge, 
 the whole so gorgeously colored as to make Delacroix faint. 
 
 The ground floor consisted of a large front room, serving 
 both as kitchen and dining-room; the provisions needed for 
 carrying on the business hung to hooks from the rafters. Be- 
 hind this room a ladder-stair went up to the first floor; but, 
 at the foot of the stairs, was a door opening into a small 
 narrow room, lighted from one of those provincial back-yards 
 which are more like a chimney, so narrow, dark, and high are 
 they. This little room, screened by a lean-to, and hidden 
 from all eyes by the surrounding walls, was the hall where 
 the Bad Boys of Issoudun held their full court. Old Cognet 
 ostensibly entertained the country people there on market 
 days ; in reality, he played host to the Knights of Idlesse. 
 
 This old Cognet, formerly a groom in some rich house, had 
 married la Cognette, originally a cook in a good family. The 
 suburb of Eome stiU uses a feminine form of the husband's 
 name for the wife, in the Latin fashion, as in Italy and 
 Poland. By combining their savings, Cognet and his wife 
 had been able to buy this house and set up as tavern-keepers. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 121 
 
 La Cognette, a woman of about forty, tall and buxom, with a 
 turn-up nose, an olive skin, hair as black as jet, brown eyes, 
 round and bright, and an intelligent, merry face, had been 
 chosen by Maxenee Gilet to be the Leonarde of the Order for 
 the sake of her good humor and her talents as a cook. Cognet 
 himself was about fifty-six, thick-set, submissive to his wife, 
 and, to quote the joke she constantly repeated, he could not 
 help seeing straight, for he was blind of one eye. 
 
 For seven years, from 1816 to 1823, neither husband nor 
 wife ever let out a word as to what was done or plotted every 
 night on their premises, and they were always very much at- 
 tached to all the Knights. Their devotion was indeed perfect, 
 but it may seem less admirable when we consider that their 
 interest was a guarantee for their silence and affection. At 
 whatever hour of the night the members of the Order came 
 to la Cognette's, if they knocked in a particular way, Father 
 Cognet, recognizing the signal, rose, lighted the fire and the 
 candles, opened the door, and went to the cellar for wine 
 laid in expressly for the Order, while his wife cooked them a 
 first-rate supper, either before or after the exploits planned 
 the night before, or during the day. 
 
 While Madame Bridau was on her way from Orleans to 
 Issoudun, the Knights of Idlesse were preparing one of their 
 most famous tricks. An old Spaniard, a prisoner of war, 
 who, at the peace, had remained in France, where he carried 
 on a small trade in seeds, had come to market early, and had 
 left his empty cart at the foot of the tower. Maxenee was the 
 first to arrive at the meeting-place fixed for the evening under 
 the tower, and was presently asked in a low voice, "What is 
 doing to-night?" 
 
 "Old Fario's cart is out here," replied he. "I almost broke 
 my nose against it. Let us get it up the knoll to the foot of 
 the tower, and after that we will see." 
 
 When Eichard built the tower of Issoudun, he founded 
 it, as has been said, on the remains of a basilica which oc- 
 cupied the site of the Koman temple and the Celtic Dun. 
 
122 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 These ruins, each representing a long series of centuries, 
 formed a large mound, full of the monuments of three ages. 
 Thus Eiehard Cceur de Lion's tower stands on the top of a 
 cone sloping equally steeply on all sides, and to be ascended 
 only by zigzag paths. To represent its position in a few 
 words, the tower may be compared to the Obelisk of Luxor 
 on its base. The base of the tower of Issoudun, concealing so 
 many archseological treasures as yet unknown, is above eighty 
 feet high on the side next the town. In an hour the cart had 
 been taken to pieces and hoisted bit by bit to the top of the 
 hill at the foot of the tower, by means something like that of 
 the soldiers who carried the guns up the pass of Saint- 
 Bernard. The cart was put together again, and all traces 
 of the operations so carefully effaced that it would seem to 
 have been carried there by the devil, or by a stroke of a 
 fairy's wand. After this great achievement, the Knights, being 
 hungry and thirsty, made their way to la Cognette's, and were 
 soon seated round the table in the low narrow room, laughing 
 by anticipation at the face Fario would make when, at about 
 ten o'clock in the morning, he should go to look for his cart. 
 
 The Knights, of course, did not play these antics every 
 night. The talents of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin 
 rolled into one would not have been able to invent three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five practical jokes a year. In the first place, 
 circumstances were not always favorable; the moon was too 
 bright, or their last prank had been too annoying to sober 
 folks; or one or another would refuse his co-operation when 
 some relation was the chosen victim. But, though the rascals 
 did not meet every night at la Cognette's, they saw each other 
 every day, and were companions in such lawful pleasures as 
 hxinting or the vintage in autumn, and skating in winter. 
 
 Among this group of a score of youths who thus protested 
 against the social somnolence of the town, some were more 
 especially intimate with Max than the others, or made him 
 their idol. A man of this temper often infatuates those 
 younger than himself. ISTow Madame Hochon's two grand- 
 sons, Frangois Hochon and Baruch Borniehe, were his 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 123 
 
 devotees. The two boys regarded Max as almost a cousin, 
 accepting the views of the neighbors as to his left-handed 
 relationship to the Lousteaus. Max was free with his loans 
 of money denied them by their grandfather Hochon for their 
 amusements ; he took them out shooting, and gave them some 
 training; in fact, his influence over them was paramount to 
 that of home. They both were orphans, and though of age, 
 lived under the guardianship of their grandfather, in con- 
 sequence of certain circumstances to be explained when the 
 great Monsieur Hochon appears on the scene. 
 
 At this moment Frangois and Baruch — ^we will call them 
 by their Christian names to make the story clearer — were 
 seated, one on the right hand, and one on the left of Max, at 
 the middle of the supper-table, that was wretchedly lighted by 
 the fuliginous glimmer of four dips, eight to the pound. The 
 party, consisting of not more than eleven of the Knights, had 
 drunk a dozen to fifteen bottles of various wines. Baruch, 
 whose name suggests a survival of Calvinism at Issoudun, 
 said to Max at the moment when the wine had set all tongues 
 wagging: 
 
 "You are about to be threatened at the very centre " 
 
 "What do you mean by that ?" asked Max. 
 
 '^hy, my grandmother has had a letter from Madame 
 Bridau, her goddaughter, announcing her arrival on a visit 
 with her son. My grandmother arranged two rooms yester- 
 day for their reception." 
 
 "And what is that to me?" said Max, taking up his glass, 
 emptying it at a gulp, and setting it down on the table with a 
 comical flourish. 
 
 Max was now four-and-thirty. One of the candles stood 
 near him, and cast its light on his martial countenance, 
 illuminating his forehead, and showing off his fair com- 
 plexion, his flashing eyes, and his hair crisply waved, and as 
 black as jet. This hair stood up strongly and naturally, 
 curling back from his brow and temples, and clearly marking 
 the outline of growth which our grandfathers called the five 
 points. N'otwithstanding such a striking contrast of black 
 
124 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 and white, Max had a very sweet face, deriving its eharm from 
 its shape, much like that given by Eaphael to his Virgin's 
 faces, and from a finely-shaped mouth, on which a gentle 
 smile was apt to linger, a set expression which Max had 
 gradually adopted. The fine color that flushes the faces of 
 the Berrichons added to his genial look, and when he laughed 
 outright he displayed two-and-thirty teeth worthy to grace 
 the mouth of a fine lady. He was tall and well proportioned, 
 neither stout nor thin. His hands, kept with care, were white 
 and not unshapely, but his feet were those of the Eoman 
 suburb, of a foot soldier under the Empire. He would have 
 made a fine general of division ; he had shoulders that would 
 have been the fortune of a field-marshal, and a breast broad 
 enough to display all the Orders of Europe. Intelligence 
 gave purpose to all his movements. And then, attractive by 
 nature, like almost all children of a passion, the noble blood 
 of his real father came out in him. 
 
 "But do not you know. Max," cried a youth at the bottom 
 of the table, the son of a retired surgeon-major named Goddet, 
 the best doctor in the town, "that Madame Hochon's god- 
 daughter is Eouget's sister? And if she and her son the 
 painter are coming here, it is no doubt to get back her share 
 of the old man's fortune, and then good-bye to your harvest !" 
 
 Max frowned. Then with a glance that went from face to 
 face all round the table, he studied the effect on his com- 
 panions of this address, and again he said, "What is that to 
 me?" 
 
 "But," Prangois began again, "it seems to me that if old 
 Kouget were to alter his will, supposing he has made one in 
 favor of la Eabouilleuse . . ." 
 
 Here Max cut his faithful follower short with these 
 words : — 
 
 "When, on my arrival here, I heard you mentioned as one 
 of the cinq-Hochons (cinq-cochons = five pigs), as the pun 
 on your name has it — and has had it these thirty years — I 
 told the man who called you so to shut up, my dear Frangois, 
 and that so emphatically, that no one at Issoudun has ever 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 125 
 
 repeated that idiotic jest^ at any rate not in my presence! 
 And this is the return you make : you make use of a name of 
 contempt in speaking of a woman you know me to be attached 
 to." 
 
 Never had Max said so much as to his intimacy with the 
 woman of whom Frangois had just spoken by the nickname 
 commonly given to her in Issoudun. As a former prisoner on 
 the hulks, Max had enough experience, and as Major in the 
 Grenadier Guards he had learned enough of honor, to under- 
 stand the origin of the contempt for him in the town. He 
 had never allowed any one whatever to say a word to him with 
 reference to Mademoiselle Flore Brazier, Jean-Jacquas 
 Eouget's servant-mistress, so vigorously designated by good 
 Madame Hochon as a hussy. Moreover, Max was well known 
 to be too touchy to be spoken to on the subject unless he began 
 it, and he never had begun it. In short, it was too dangerous 
 to incur Max's anger or displeasure for even his most intimate 
 friends to banter him about la Eabouilleuse. 
 
 When something was once said of a coimeetion between 
 Max and this girl in the presence of Major Potel and of 
 Captain Eenard, the two officers with whom he lived on terms 
 of equality, Potel had replied : 
 
 "If he is Jean-Jacques Eouget's half-brother, why should 
 he not live with him ?" 
 
 "And besides," added Eenard, "the girl is a morsel for a 
 king; supposing he loves her, where is the harm? Does not 
 young Goddet pay court to Madame Fichet to make the 
 daughter his wife as a reward for such a penance ?" 
 
 After this well-merited lecture, Frangois could not recover 
 the thread of his ideas, and he was yet more at fault when 
 Max gently added: 
 
 "Well, go on " 
 
 "Certainly not!" cried Frangois. 
 
 "You are angry for nothing, Max," said young Goddet. 
 "Is it not an understood thing that here, at la Cognette's, we 
 may all say what we please? Should we not all become the 
 mortal foes of any one of us who remembered outside these 
 
t2e A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 walls anything that is said, thought, or done here ? All the 
 town speaks of Flore Brazier by the nickname of la Eabouil- 
 leuse; if Frangois let it slip out by accident, is that a crime 
 against the Order of Idlesse ?" 
 
 "No," said Max, "only against our personal friendship. 
 — But I thought better of it ; I remembered we were in Idlesse. 
 I told him to go on." 
 
 There was utter silence. The pause was so uncomfortable 
 for all present that Max exclaimed: "I will go on for him" 
 (sensation), "for all of you" (amazement), "and tell you what 
 you are thinking"" (great sensation) . "You think that Flore, 
 la Eabouilleuse, Flore Brazier, Daddy Eouget's housekeeper 
 — for they call him Pere Eouget ! — an old bachelor, who will 
 never have any children ! — ^you think, I say, that this woman 
 has supplied me with everything since I came to Issoudun. 
 If I have three hundred francs a month to toss out of window; 
 if I can treat you often as I am doing this evening, and have 
 money to lend to you all, I must get the cash out of Madame 
 Brazier's purse? Well, then, by Heaven! Yes, and again 
 yes. — Yes, Mademoiselle Brazier has taken deadly aim at the 
 old man's fortune." 
 
 "Prom father to son she will have richly earned it," said 
 Goddet in his corner. 
 
 "You believe," Max went on, after smiling at Goddet's 
 remark, "that I have laid a plot to marry Flore after the old 
 man's death, and that then his sister, and this son, of whom 
 I never heard till this instant, will endanger my future 
 prospects ?" 
 
 "That's it," cried Frangois. 
 
 "So we all think round this table," said Baruch. 
 
 "Well, be calm, my boys," replied Max; "forewarned is 
 forearmed. Now, I speak to the Knights of Idlesse. If, to 
 be rid of these Parisians, I need the support of the Order, will 
 you lend me a hand? Oh, within the limits we have pre- 
 scribed for our pranks," he quickly added, seeing a slight 
 hesitancy. "Do you suppose I want to murder or poison 
 them? — Thank God, I am not a fool.' And supposing, after 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 127 
 
 all, that the Bridaus should win the day, and Flore should get 
 no more than she has, I should he satisfied with that, do you 
 hear? I like her well enough to prefer her to Mademoiselle 
 Pichet, if Mademoiselle Fichet would have anything to say to 
 me!" 
 
 Mademoiselle Fichet was the richest heiress of Issoudun; 
 and the daughter's hand formed a large item in young God- 
 det's passion for her mother. 
 
 Plain speaking is so precious, that the eleven Knights rose 
 as one man. 
 
 "You are of the right sort. Max I" 
 
 "That is something like. Max. We will be the Knights of 
 Salvation." 
 
 "Down with the Bridaus !" 
 
 "We will bridle the Bridaus !" 
 
 "After all, a sweetheart has been known to have three hus- 
 bands !" 
 
 "Deuce take it, old Lousteau was fond of Madame Eouget, 
 and there is less harm in courting a housekeeper free and un- 
 fettered!" 
 
 "And if old Eouget was Max's father more or less, it is all 
 in the family !" 
 
 "Opinions are free!" 
 
 "Hurrah for Max !" 
 
 "Down with cant !" 
 
 "Let us drink the fair Flore's health!" 
 
 Such were the eleven answers, acclamations, or toasts that 
 broke from the eleven Knights of Idlesse, the outcome, it must 
 be owned, of their very low standard of morality. We see 
 now what Max's object had been in establishing himself as 
 Grand Master of the Order. While inventing practical jokes, 
 and making himself agreeable to the youth of the principal 
 families, Max hoped to secure their suffrages in the day of his 
 rehabilitation. He rose with a grace, lifted his glass full of 
 Bordeaux, and all awaited his next speech. 
 
 "For all the ill I wish you, I only hope you may all get 
 wives to compare with the fair Flore! As to the incursion 
 
128 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 of relations, for the present I am not alarmed; and later, 
 we shall see!" 
 
 "We must not forget Fario's cart !" 
 
 "Oh, that is safe enough, by Jove !" said Goddet. 
 
 "I will see to the fitting conclusion of that joke," cried Max. 
 "Be early at the market, and come and let me know when the 
 old fellow comes to look for his cart." 
 
 The clocks were striking half -past three in the morning; 
 the Knights went away in silence to find their way home, 
 hugging the wall, and not making a sound, all being shod 
 mth list shoes. 
 
 Max slowly walked up to the Place Saint- Jean in the upper 
 part of the town, between the Porte Saint-Jean and the Porte 
 Villate, the rich citizens' quarter. Major Gilet had dis- 
 sembled his fears, but this news had hit him hard. Since his 
 stay above or below decks he had acquired a power of dissimu- 
 lation as great and deep as his depravement. In the first 
 place, and above all, the forty thousand francs a year in land 
 owned by Eouget was the whole of Gilet's passion for Flore 
 Brazier, of that you may be sure ! It may easily be seen from 
 his mode of conduct what confidence she had led him to feel 
 in her future fortune, as based on the old bachelor's affection. 
 At the same time, the news that the legitimate heirs were on 
 their way was enough to shake Max's faith in Flore's in- 
 fluence. The savings of the last seventeen years still stood in 
 Eouget's name. Now if the will, which Flore declared had 
 long since been executed in her favor, should be revoked, these 
 savings at any rate might be secured if they were invested in 
 the name of Mademoiselle Brazier. 
 
 "In all these seven years, that idiot of a girl has never 
 spoken a word about nephews and a sister !" said Max to him- 
 self, as he turned out of the Eue Marmouse into the Rue 
 I'Avenier. "Seven hundred and fifty thousand francs in the 
 hands of ten or twelve different notaries, at Bourges, Vierzon, 
 and Chateauroux, cannot be drawn out or invested in State 
 securities within a week without its being known in a land of 
 'jaw.' To begin with, we must pack off the relations; but 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 129 
 
 once quit of them, we must make haste and secure that for- 
 tune. Well, I must think it over." 
 
 Max was tired. He went into Eouget's house with a latch- 
 key, and crept noiselessly to bed, saying to himself, "To-mor- 
 row my ideas will be clearer." 
 
 It will not be useless here to explain whence the Sultana of 
 the Place Saint-Jean had obtained the nickname of la Ea- 
 bouilleuse, and how she had gained the command of the 
 Eouget establishment. 
 
 As he had advanced in years, the old doctor, father of 
 Jean-Jacques and of Madame Bridau, had become aware of 
 his son's utter stupidity. He then held him very tight, trying 
 to force him into habits which would take the place of wisdom; 
 but by this means, without knowing it, he was preparing him 
 to be tame under the first tyrant that might succeed in getting 
 the halter round his neck. One day, as he rode home from 
 his rounds, the wily and vicious old man saw a lovely little 
 girl on the skirt of the water-meadow by the avenue to Tivoli. 
 On hearing the horse, the child rose up from the bottom of 
 one of the channels, which, seen from the height of Issoudun, 
 look like silver ribbons on a green dress. Starting up like a 
 naiad, the girl displayed to the doctor one of the sweetest 
 virgin heads that ever painter dreamed of. Old Eouget, who 
 knew the whole neighborhood, did not know this miracle of 
 beauty. The child, almost naked, wore a tattered and scanty 
 petticoat full of holes, and made of cheap woolen stuff, striped 
 brown and white. A sheet of paper, fastened down by an 
 osier withy, served her for a hat. Under this paper, scrawled 
 over with strokes and O's, fully Justifying its name of scrib- 
 bling paper, was gathered up the most beautiful golden hair 
 that any daughter of Eve could desire, fastened in a twist 
 with a horse's curry-comb. Her pretty sunburnt bosom, 
 scarcely covered by the rags of a handkerchief that had once 
 been a bandana, showed its whiteness below the sunburn. The 
 petticoat, pulled through between the legs and fastened by a 
 coarse pin, looked a good deal like a swimmer's bathing 
 9 
 
130 A BAOHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 drawers. Her feet and legs, visible through the clear water, 
 were characterized by a slenderness worthy of the sculptors of 
 the Middle Ages. This fair body, from exposure to the sun, 
 had a rosy hue which was not ungraceful ; the neck and bosom 
 were worthy to be covered by a silken shawl. Finally, the 
 nymph had blue eyes, shaded by lashes whose expression would 
 have brought a painter or a poet to his knees. The doctor, 
 enough of an anatomist to know a lovely figure, perceived 
 that all the arts would be losers if this exquisite person were 
 destroyed by field labor. 
 
 "Where do you come from, little one? I never saw you 
 before," said the old doctor of sixty-two. 
 
 The scene took place in the month of September 1799. 
 
 "I belong to Vatan," replied the girl. 
 
 On hearing a town accent, an ill-looking man, about two 
 hundred yards away, standing in the upper waters of the 
 stream, raised his head. 
 
 "Now, then, what are you at, Flore ?" he called out. "Jab- 
 bering there instead of working; all the basketful will get 
 off!" 
 
 "And what do you come here for from Vatan?" asked the 
 doctor, not troubling himself about this interruption. 
 
 "I rabouille for my uncle Brazier there." 
 
 Rabouiller is a local word of le Berry, which perfectly 
 describes the process it is meant to represent — ^the action of 
 stirring the waters of a brooklet by beating them with a sort 
 of large racket made of the branch of a tree. The crayfish, 
 frightened by the commotion, of which they fail to see the 
 purpose, hastily escape up stream, and in their agitation rush 
 into the nets, which the poacher has placed at a proper dis- 
 tance. Flore Brazier held her racket, or rdbouilloir, with the 
 unconscious grace of innocence. 
 
 "But has your uncle got leave to fish for crayfish?" 
 
 "'Well, and aren't we under the Republic one and indi- 
 visible ?" shouted uncle Brazier from where he stood. 
 
 "We are under the Directory," said the doctor; "and I know 
 of no law which will allow a man from Vatan to come and 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 131 
 
 fish within the limits of the Commune of Issoudun." Then 
 he said to Flore, "Is your mother living, child?" 
 
 "No, sir, and my father is in hospital at Bonrges ; he went 
 mad after getting a sunstroke on his head in the fields " 
 
 "How much do you earn?" 
 
 "Five sous a day all the season for crayfish — I goes to 
 Braisne, ever so far, to beat the waters. Then in harvest- 
 time, I gleans; and in winter, I spins." 
 
 "You are about twelve, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Would you like to come with me? You shall be well 
 fed, nicely dressed, have pretty shoes " 
 
 "No, no. My niece has got to stay wi' me. I have her in 
 charge before God and man," said uncle Brazier, who had 
 come down to his niece and the doctor. "I am her guardian, 
 lam." 
 
 The doctor preserved his gravity, suppressing a smile, 
 which would certainly have been too much for any one else at 
 the sight of uncle Brazier. This "guardian" had on a 
 peasant's broad hat, ruined by the sun and rain, riddled like 
 a cabbage leaf on which many caterpillars have resided, and 
 sewn up with white cotton. Under this hat was a dark hollow 
 face, in which mouth, nose, and eyes were four darker spots. 
 His worn jacket was like a piece of patchwork, and his 
 trousers were of sacking. 
 
 "I am Doctor Eouget," said the physician ; "and, since you 
 are the child's guardian, bring her to my house. Place Saint- 
 Jean ; it will not be a bad day's work for you or for her either." 
 
 And without another word, feeling quite sure that he 
 should see uncle Brazier in due course with the pretty Eabouil- 
 leuse. Doctor Rouget spurred his horse on the road to Issou- 
 dun. And, in fact, just as he was sitting down to dinner, 
 his cook announced Citoyen and Citoyenne Brazier. 
 
 "Sit down," said the doctor to the uncle and niece. 
 
 Flore and her guardian, both barefoot, looked round the 
 doctor's dining-room with eyes amazed; and this was why. 
 
 The house, inherited by Eouget from old Descoings, stands 
 
132 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 in the middle of one side of the Place Saint-Jean, a long and 
 very narrow square planted with a few sickly-looking lime- 
 trees. The houses here are better built than in any other part 
 of the town, and Deseoings' is one of the best. This house, 
 facing Monsieur Hochon's, has three windows on the front 
 towards the square, on the first iloor, and below them a car- 
 riage gate into the courtyard, behind which the garden lies. 
 Under the archway of this carriage gate is a door into a large 
 room with two windows to the street. The kitchen is behind 
 this room, but cut ofE by a staircase leading to the first floor 
 and attics above. At an angle with the kitchen are a wood- 
 house, a shed where the washing was done, stabling for two 
 horses, and a coach-house; and above them are lofts for corn, 
 hay, and oats, besides a room where the doctor's man-servant 
 slept. 
 
 The room so much admired by the little peasant girl and 
 her uncle was decorated with carved wood in the style executed 
 under Louis XV., and painted gray, and a handsome marble 
 chimney-piece, above which Flore could see herself in a large 
 glass reaching to the ceiling, and set in a carved and gilt 
 frame. On the panels, at intervals, hung a few pictures, the 
 spoil of the Abbeys of Deols, of Issoudun, of Saint-Gildas, of 
 la Free, of Chezal-Benoit, of Saint-Sulpice, and of the con- 
 vents of Bourges and Issoudun, which had formerly been en- 
 riched by the liberality of kings and of the faithful with 
 precious gifts and the finest works of the Renaissance. Thus, 
 among the pictures preserved by Deseoings and inherited 
 by Rouget, there was a Holy Family by Albano, a Saint 
 Jerome by Domeniehino, a Head of Christ by Gian Bellini, 
 a Virgin by Leonardo da Vinci, Christ bearing the Cross by 
 Titian, from the Marchese di Belabre's collection — he who 
 stood a siege and had his head cut ofE under Louis XIII. ; a 
 Lazarus by Veronese, a Marriage of the Virgin by the Priest 
 of Genoa, two Church pictures by Eubens, and a copy from 
 Perugino by Perugino himself, or by Raphael; finally, two 
 Correggios and an Andrea del Sarto. The Deseoings had 
 chosen these from among three hundred, the spoils of 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 133 
 
 churches, not in the least knowing their value, and selecting 
 them solely for their better condition. Several had not 
 merely magnificent frames, but were under glass. It was the 
 beauty of the frames, and the value which the panes seemed 
 to suggest, that had led to their choice. 
 
 Thus the furniture of the room was not devoid of the 
 luxury so much prized in our days, though not at that time 
 valued at Issoudun. The clock standing on the chimney- 
 shelf between two superb silver chandeliers was distinguished 
 by a solemn magnificence that betrayed the hand of Boule. 
 The armchairs in carved wood, fitted with worsted-work done 
 by devout ladies of rank, would be highly prized in these days, 
 for they all bore coronets and coats of arms. Between the 
 two windows stood a handsome console, brought from some 
 chateau, and on it an enormous Chinese jar, in which the 
 doctor kept his tobacco. 
 
 Neither Eouget, nor his son, nor the cook, nor the man- 
 servant, took the least care of these treasures. They spit 
 into a fireplace of beautiful workmanship, and the gilt mould- 
 ings were variegated with verdigris. A pretty chandelier, 
 partly of porcelain, was speckled, like the ceiling, with black 
 spots, showing that the flies were at home there. The Des- 
 coings had hung the windows with brocade curtains, stripped 
 from the bed of some Abbot. To the left of the door a cabinet 
 worth some thousands of francs served as a sideboard. 
 
 "Now, Panchette," said the doctor to his cook, "bring two 
 glasses, and fetch us something good." 
 
 Fanchette, a sturdy country servant, who was regarded as 
 superior even to la Cognette and the best cook in Issoudun, 
 flew with an alacrity that testified to the doctor's despotic rule, 
 and also to some curiosity on her part. 
 
 "What is an acre of vine-land worth in your parts?" said 
 the doctor, pouring out a glass of wine for Brazier. 
 
 "A hundred crowns in hard cash." 
 
 "Well, leave your niece here as maid-servant; she shall 
 have a hundred crowns for wages, and you as her guardian, 
 Bhall take the money " 
 
134 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Every year?" said Brazier, opening his eyes as large as 
 saucers. 
 
 "I leave the matter to your conscience," replied the doctor. 
 "She is an orphan. Till she is eighteen Flore will have none 
 of the money." 
 
 "She is goin' on for twelve," said the uncle ; "that makes it 
 up to six acres of vine-land. But she is sweetly pretty, as 
 mild as a lamb, very strong, very quick, very obedient. Poor 
 creetur, she was the apple of his eye to my poor brother." 
 
 "And I will pay a year in advance," said the doctor. 
 
 "Lord A'mighty, make it two years, and us'U consider it 
 settled. She will be better off with you than down at our 
 place, for my wife whacks her, she can't abide her. There's 
 only me that purtects her, poor dear little creetur — as inno- 
 cent as a new-born babe !" 
 
 On hearing this speech, the doctor, struck by the word in- 
 nocent, signed to uncle Brazier, and led him out into the 
 courtyard, and from thence into the garden, leaving the little 
 Eabouilleuse looking at the table between Panchette and Jean- 
 Jacques, who cross-questioned her, and to whom she artlessly 
 related her meeting with the doctor. 
 
 "Well, honey, good-bye," said uncle Brazier on his return, 
 kissing Flore on the forehead. "You may thank me for a 
 good job in leaving you with this kind and generous father of 
 the poor. You've got to obey him like as you would me. Be 
 a very good girl, and do what he tells you." 
 
 "Get the room over mine ready," said the doctor to Fan- 
 ehette. "This little Flore, who is certainly well named, will 
 sleep there from this evening. To-morrow we will send for 
 a shoemaker and a needlewoman. Now, lay a place for her 
 at once;. she will keep us company." 
 
 That evening nothing was talked of in Issoudun but the 
 introduction of a little "Eabouilleuse" into Doctor Eouget's 
 household. The nickname stuck to Mademoiselle Brazier in 
 this land of mocking spirits, before, during, and after her 
 rise to fortune. 
 
 The doctor aimed, no doubt, at doing for Flore, in a small 
 
A BACHBLOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 135 
 
 way, what Louis XV. did on a large scale for Mademoiselle 
 de Romans ; but he set to work too late. Louis XV. was still 
 young, while the doctor was on the verge of old age. 
 
 From twelve years old to fourteen the charming peasant 
 girl enjoyed unmixed happiness. Nicely dressed, in infinitely 
 better clothes than the richest Miss in Issoudun, she had a 
 gold watch and trinkets, given her by the doctor to encourage 
 her in her studies, for she had a master to teach her reading, 
 writing, and account-keeping. But the almost animal life 
 led by the peasantry had given Flore such an aversion for the 
 bitter cup of learning, that the doctor got no further with her 
 education. 
 
 His intentions with regard to this girl whom he was polish- 
 ing, teaching, and training with a care that was all the more 
 pathetic, because he had been supposed incapable of tenderness, 
 were variously interpreted by the vulgar gossips of the town, 
 whose tattle gave rise, as in the matter of Agathe's and Max's 
 parentage, to serious mistakes. It is not easy for the popula- 
 tion of a town to disentangle the truth from a thousand con- 
 jectures in the midst of contradictory comments, and among 
 aU the hypotheses to which a single fact gives rise. In the 
 provinces, as formerly among the politicians of la petite 
 Provence at the Tuileries, everything must be accounted for, 
 and at last everybody knows everything. But each individual 
 clings to the view of affairs that he prefers; that is the only 
 true one, he can prove it, and believes his own version ex- 
 clusively. Hence, notwithstanding the unscreened life and 
 the espionage of a country town, the truth is often obscured, 
 and can be detected only by the impartiality of the historian, 
 or of a superior mind looking down from a higher point of 
 view. 
 
 "What do you suppose that old ape wants, at his age, of a 
 child of fifteen?" said one and another, two years after Flore's 
 arrival. 
 
 "What indeed?" replied a third; "his high days are long 
 since past and gone." 
 
 "My dear fellow, the doctor is disgusted with his idiot of a 
 
136 A BACHBLOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 son, and he cannot get over his hatred of Agatha; in that 
 dilemma perhaps he has been such a good boy these two years 
 past in order to marry the girl; and he might have a boy by 
 her, strong and sturdy and wide awake like Max," observed a 
 wisehead. 
 
 "Get along! Do you suppose that after leading such a 
 life as Lousteau and Eouget did between 1770 and 1787, a 
 man of sixty-two is likely to have children? Not a bit of it; 
 the old wretch has read his old testament, if only from a 
 medical point of view, and he knows how King David warmed 
 himself in his old age. That is all, my good fellow." 
 
 "They say that Brazier, when he is fuddled, boasts at 
 Vatan that he stole the child," cried one of those people who 
 prefer to believe the worst. 
 
 "Bless me ! neighbor, and what won't folks say at Issou- 
 dun?" 
 
 Prom 1800 to 1805, for five years, the doctor had the 
 pleasure of educating Flore without the worry which Made- 
 moiselle de Eomans is said to have given to Louis the Well- 
 beloved by her ambitions and pretensions. The little Ea- 
 bouilleuse was so happy, comparing the position she now was 
 in with the life she would have led with her uncle, that she 
 submitted, no doubt, to her master's requirements, as an 
 Eastern slave does. 
 
 With all respect to the writers of idyls and to philan- 
 thropists, the sons of the soil have but vague notions of cer- 
 tain virtues; their scruples have their root in self-interest, 
 not in any feeling for the good and beautiful; brought up to 
 look forward to poverty, to incessant toil and want, the 
 prospect makes them regard everything as allowable that can 
 rescue them from the hell of hunger and everlasting labor, 
 especially if it is not prohibited by law. If there are ex- 
 ceptions, they are rare. Virtue, socially speaking, is mated 
 with ease, and begins with education. Flore Brazier was, 
 therefore, an object of envy to every girl for six leagues 
 round Issoudun, though in the eye of religion her conduct 
 was in the highest degree reprehensible. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 137 
 
 Flore, born in 1787, was brought up amid the Saturnalia 
 of 1793 and 1798, whose lurid light was reflected on a land 
 bereft of priesthood, worship, altars, or religious ceremonies, 
 where marriage was a civil contract, and where revolutionary 
 axioms left a deep impression, especially at Issoudun, where 
 rebellion is traditional. Catholic worship was hardly re- 
 established in 1802. The Emperor had some difficulty in 
 finding priests; even in 1806 many a parish in France was 
 still in widowhood, so slowly could a clergy decimated by the 
 scaffold be reinstated after such violent dispersal. Hence, 
 in 1802, there was nothing to accuse Flore but her own con- 
 science. In uncle Brazier's ward was not conscience likely to 
 prove weaker than interest? Though the cynical doctor's 
 age led him, as there is every reason to suppose, to respect this 
 maiden of fifteen, she was not the less regarded as a very wide- 
 awake young person. However, some people insisted on find- 
 ing a certificate of innocence in the cessation of the doctor's 
 care and kindness ; for the last two years of his life he treated 
 her with more than coldness. 
 
 Old Eouget had killed enough people to be able to foresee 
 his own end. His notary, finding him on his deathbed, 
 ■wrapped in the cloak of encyclopedist philosophy, urged him 
 to do something for the young girl, then seventeen years old. 
 
 "Very good, make her of age, emancipate her," said he. 
 
 The reply is characteristic of this old man, who never failed 
 to point his sarcasm with an allusion to the profession of the 
 man he was answering. By veiling his evil deeds under a 
 witticism he obtained forgiveness for them in a part of the 
 world where wit always wins the day, especially when it is 
 backed up by intelligent self-interest. The notary heard in this 
 speech the concentrated hatred of a man whom Kature had 
 balked of an intended debauch, and his revenge on the inno- 
 cent object of his senile affection. This opinion was, to some 
 extent, confirmed by the doctor's obduracy; he left nothing 
 to la Eabouilleuse, saying with a bitter smUe, "Her beauty 
 is wealth enough !" when the notary again pressed the matter. 
 
 Jean-Jacques Eouget did not mourn for the old man, but 
 
138 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Flore did. The doctor had made his son very unhappy, es- 
 pecially since he had come of age, which was in 1791 ; whereas 
 he had given the little peasant girl the material happiness 
 which is the ideal of laboring folk. When, after the old man 
 was buried, Fanehette said to Flore, "Well, what is to become 
 of you now that monsieur is gone ?" Jean- Jacques' eyes beamed, 
 and for the first time in his life his stolid face lighted up, 
 seemed to shine with a flash of thought, and expressed a 
 feeling. 
 
 "Leave her with me," said he to Fanehette, who was clear- 
 ing the table. 
 
 Flore, at seventeen, still had that refinement of figure and 
 face, that elegance of beauty which had bewitched the doctor; 
 women of the world know how to preserve it, but in a peasant 
 girl it fades as swiftly as the flowers of the field. At the same 
 time, the tendency to become stout, which comes to all hand- 
 some country women when they do not lead a life of toil and 
 privation in the open fields and sunshine, was already notice- 
 able m Flore. Her bust was large, her round, white shoulders 
 were richly moulded and finely joined to a throat that al- 
 ready showed fat wrinkles. But the shape of her face was 
 still pure, and her chin as yet delicately cut. 
 
 "Flore," said Jean-Jacques in agitated tones, "you are quite 
 used to this house ?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Jacques." 
 
 On the very verge of a declaration, the heir felt his tongue 
 tied by the remembrance of the dead man but now laid in his 
 grave, and wondered to what lengths his father's benevolence 
 might have gone. Flore, looking at her new master, and in- 
 capable of imagining his simplicity, waited for some minutes 
 for Jean- Jacques to proceed; but she presently left him, not 
 knowing what to think of his obstinate silence. Whatever 
 education she might have had from the doctor, it was many 
 a day before she understood the character of his son, of whom 
 this, in a few words, is the history. 
 
 At his father's death, Jacques, now thirty-seven years old, 
 was as timid and as submissive to parental discipline as any 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 139 
 
 boy of twelve. This timidity will account for his childhood, 
 youth, and life to such readers as might not otherwise believe 
 in such a character, or the facts of a story which is common, 
 alas ! in every rank of life — even among princes, for Sophie 
 Dawes was taken up by the last of the Condes in a worse posi- 
 tion than that of la Eabouilleuse. There are two kinds of 
 timidity — timidity of mind, and timidity of the nerves; 
 physical timidity, and moral timidity. Each is independent 
 of the other. The body may be frightened and quake while 
 the mind remains calm and bold, and vice versa. This is the 
 key to many eccentricities of conduct. When both kinds 
 meet in the same man he will be good for nothing all his life. 
 This utter timidity is that of the person of whom we say, 
 "He is imbecile." Still, this imbecility sometimes covers 
 great qualities though suppressed. To this double infirmity 
 perhaps do we owe certain monks who have lived in ecstasy. 
 This unhappy moral and physical disposition may be pro- 
 duced by the perfection of the bodily organs and of the soul, 
 as well as by certain defects, as yet not fully studied. 
 
 Jean-Jacques' timidity arose from a certain torpor of his 
 faculties, which a first-rate tutor, or a surgeon like Desplein, 
 would have roused. In him, as in cretins, the sensual side 
 of love had absorbed the strength and energy which his in- 
 telligence lacked, though he had sense enough to conduct him- 
 self through life. The violence of his passion, stripped of the 
 ideal, in which it blossoms in other young men, added to his 
 timidity. He never could make up his mind to go courting, 
 to use a familiar expression, to any woman in Issoudun. Now 
 no young girl or woman could make advances to an under- 
 sized man, with a vulgar face, which two prominent green- 
 gooseberry eyes would have made ugly enough, if pinched 
 features and a sallow complexion had not made him look old 
 before his time. In fact, the vicinity of a woman annihilated 
 the poor boy, who was goaded by his passion as vehemently 
 as he was bridled by the few notions he had derived from his 
 education. Halting between two equal forces, he did not 
 know what to say, and dreaded to be asked a question, so 
 
140 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 terrified was he at having to reply. Desire, which generally 
 loosens a man's tongue, froze his. 
 
 So Jean-Jacques lived solitary and sought solitude, not 
 finding it irksome. The doctor saw, too late to remedy them, 
 the disastrous results of this temperament and character. He 
 would gladly have seen his son married; but as that would 
 have been to subject him to a rule which would soon be 
 despotic, he could not but hesitate. Would not that be to 
 hand over his fortune to the management of a stranger, an 
 unknown woman? Now he well knew how difficult it is to 
 foresee, from a study of a young girl, exactly what the woman's 
 character may become. And so, while looking about him for 
 a daughter-in-law whose education or whose ideas should 
 be a sufficient guarantee, he tried to guide his son into the 
 paths of avarice. Failing intelligence, he hoped thus to give 
 this simpleton a guiding instinct. He began by accustoming 
 him to a mechanical existence, and gave him fixed notions 
 as to the investment of money; then he spared him the chief 
 difficulties of the management of landed estate by leaving 
 all his lands in capital order, and let on long leases. And 
 for all that, the principal fact, which was to be paramount 
 in this poor creature's life, escaped the doctor's penetration — 
 Jean-Jacques was passionately in love with la Eabouilleuse. 
 
 Nothing could, indeed, be more natural. Flore was the 
 only woman with whom the young man came in contact, the 
 only woman he ever saw at his ease, gazing on her in secret, 
 and watching her from hour to hour; for him Flore was the 
 light of his father's house; without knowing it, she afforded 
 him the only pleasures that gilded his youth. Far from being 
 jealous of his father, he was delighted by the education he 
 bestowed on Flore; was not the wife he needed an approach- 
 able woman who would need no courting ? For passion, be it 
 observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelli- 
 gence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth. 
 In the least human soul we always find the animal instinct 
 which, in its persistency, is like a thought. 
 
 Next day, Flore, who had meditated on her master's silence, 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 141 
 
 expected some important communication; but, though he 
 hovered about her, looking at her with covert, amorous glances, 
 Jean-Jacques found nothing to say. At last, at dessert, the 
 master began again as he had begun yesterday. 
 
 "You are comfortable here ?" he asked Flore. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Jean." 
 
 "Well, stay then." 
 
 "Thank you. Monsieur Jean." 
 
 This strange state of things lasted for three weeks. One 
 night, when not a sound broke the stillness, Flore, waking 
 by chance, heard the regular breathing of a man at her door, 
 and was frightened at finding Jean-Jacques lying on the mat 
 like a dog, having, no doubt, made some little hole at the 
 bottom of the door to see into the room. 
 
 "He is in love with me," thought she ; "but he will get the 
 rheumatism at this game." 
 
 Next day Flore looked at her master in a marked way. This 
 speechless and almost instinctive love had touched her; she 
 no longer thought the poor simple creature so hideous, in 
 spite of the ulcer-like spots on his temples and forehead, the 
 terrible coronal of vitiated blood. 
 
 "You do not want to go back to the open fields, I suppose ?" 
 said Jean-Jacques, when they were alone. 
 
 "Why do you ask ?" said she, looking at him. 
 
 "I wanted to know " replied Eouget, turning the color 
 
 of a boiled lobster. 
 
 "Do you want me to go ?" she asked. 
 
 "No, mademoiselle." 
 
 "Well, then, what is it you want to know ? You have some 
 reason " 
 
 "Yes, I wanted to know " 
 
 "What?" said Flore. 
 "You would not tell me." 
 "Yes, on my word as an honest woman." 
 "Ah! That is the point," said Eouget alarmed. "You 
 are an honest woman ?" 
 "By Heaven!" 
 
142 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Yes— really?" 
 
 "Since I say it !" 
 
 "Come, now. Are you the same now as you were when you 
 stood there, barefoot, brought here by your uncle ?" 
 
 "A pretty question, on my word!" exclaimed Flore, red- 
 dening. 
 
 The heir bent his head in silence, and did not look up again. 
 Flore, astounded at finding her reply, so flattering to the 
 man, received with such consternation, left the room. 
 
 Three days later, at the same hour, for they both seemed 
 to regard the dessert as the scene of battle, Flore was the 
 first to say to her master, "Are you vexed vrith me for any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "No, mademoiselle," he replied. "'No ... on the 
 contrary " 
 
 "You seemed so much annoyed the other day at hearing that 
 I was an honest girl " 
 
 "No; I only wanted to know . . . but you would not 
 tell me." 
 
 "On my honor," said she, "I will tell you the whole truth." 
 
 "The whole truth about . . . my father " said 
 
 he in a choked voice. 
 
 "Your father," said she, looking straight into her master's 
 eyes, "was a good fellow; he loved a laugh. . . . Well, 
 a little. . . . Poor dear man, it was not for want of will. 
 And then he had some grievance against you, I don't know 
 what, and he had intentions — oh! unfortunate intentions. 
 — He often made me laugh; well! that is all. And what 
 then?" 
 
 "Well, then, Flore," said the heir, taking the girl's hand, 
 "since my father was nothing to you " 
 
 "Why, what did you suppose he was to me?" she ex- 
 claimed, in the tone of a girl offended by an insulting sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 "Well, then, listen to me." 
 
 "He was my benefactor, that was all. Ah ! he would have 
 liked to make me his wife . . . but " 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 143 
 
 "But," said Rouget, taking her hand again, for she had 
 pulled it away, "since he was nothing of the kind, you can 
 stay here with me?" 
 
 "If you like," said she, looking down. 
 
 "No, no. It is if you like, you," replied Eouget. "Yes, 
 you may be — mistress here. All that is here shall be yours ; 
 you shall take care of my fortune ; it will be the same as your 
 own. For I love you, and I always have loved you, from the 
 moment when you first came in — here — ^there — barefoot." 
 
 Flore made no reply. The silence became awkward, and 
 Jean-Jacques then uttered this odious argument: 
 
 "Come, it would be better than going back to the fields, 
 wouldn't it?" he asked, with manifest eagerness. 
 
 "Dame ! Monsieur Jean, as you please," said she. 
 
 But notwithstanding this "as you please," poor Rouget was 
 no forwarder. Men of that type must have a certainty. The 
 effort it is to them to confess their love is so great, and costs 
 them so dear, that they know they can never do it again. 
 Hence their attachment to the first woman who accepts them. 
 
 Events can only be inferred from the results. Ten months 
 after his father's death, Jean- Jacques was another man; his 
 pallid, leaden-hued face, disfigured by little boils on the 
 temples and forehead, had lighted up, grown clear-skinned, 
 and acquired a rosy tinge. His countenance shone with hap- 
 piness. Flore insisted on her master's taking the greatest 
 care of his person, and made it a point of honor to herself 
 that he should be neatly dressed ; she would look after him as 
 he went out for a walk, standing on the doorstep till he was 
 out of sight. All the town observed this alteration, which 
 had made a new creature of Jean-Jacques Rouget. 
 
 "Have you heard the news?" asked one and another in 
 Issoudun. 
 
 "Why— what?" 
 
 "Jean has inherited everything from his father, even la 
 Eabouilleuse " 
 
 "Did you suppose that the old doctor was not sharp enough 
 to leave his son a housekeeper?" 
 
144 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "She is a perfect treasure for Eouget, that is certain," was 
 the general cry. 
 
 "She is a crafty one! She is very handsome; she will 
 make him marry her." 
 
 "What luck that girl has had !" 
 
 "It is the luck that only comes to handsome girls." 
 
 "Pooh, nonsense ! So you fancy. But there was my uncle, 
 Borniche-Herau ; well, you have heard speak of Mademoiselle 
 Ganivet ; she was as ugly as the seven deadly sins, and he left 
 her no less than a thousand crowns a year " 
 
 "Bah ! that was in 1778 !" 
 
 "All the same, Eouget is a fool ; his father left him at least 
 forty thousand francs a year. He might have married Made- 
 moiselle Herau." 
 
 "The doctor tried that on, but she would have nothing to 
 say to it ; Eouget is too great an idiot " 
 
 "An idiot ! Women are very happy with men of that sort." 
 
 "Is your wife happy?" 
 
 Such were the comments current in Issoudun. Though, 
 after the manners and customs of the provinces, the world 
 began by laughing at this quasi-marriage, it ended by ad- 
 miring Flore for devoting herself to this poor creature. This 
 was how Flore Brazier rose to sovereignty over the house of 
 Eouget, "from father to son," to quote the words of Goddet 
 junior. It will now not be useless to sketch the history of her 
 rule for the better information of other bachelors. 
 
 The only person in Issoudun to complain of Flore Brazier's 
 installation as queen on Jean-Jacques Eouget's hearth was 
 old Fanchette; she protested against such an immoral state 
 of affairs, and took the part of outraged decency. To be sure, 
 she felt humiliated at her age at having for her mistress a 
 Eabouilleuse, a girl who had come to the house without a 
 shoe to her foot. Fanchette had three hundred francs a year 
 from securities in the funds, for the doctor had made her 
 invest her savings, and her late master had left her an 
 annuity of a hundred crowns, so she could live comfortably; 
 
A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 145 
 
 and she left the house nine months after her old master's 
 funeral, on the 15th of April 1806. To the perspicacious 
 reader, this will seem to mark the date when Flore ceased to 
 be "an honest girl." 
 
 La Eabouilleuse, keen enough to foresee Fanchette's de- 
 fection — for there is nothing like exercise of power to in- 
 culcate politics — had made up her mind to do without a 
 maid. For the last six month she had, without betraying it, 
 been studying the culinary arts which made Fanchette a 
 cordon bleu worthy to cater for a doctor. As epicures, doctors 
 may rank with bishops. Doctor Eouget had perfected Fan- 
 chette. In the country the lack of occupation, and the 
 monotony of life, are apt to turn an active mind to cooking. 
 Dinners are not so luxurious as in Paris, but they are better; 
 the dishes are studied and thought out. Buried in the coun- 
 try, there are Caremes in petticoats, undiscovered geniuses, 
 who know how to turn out a simple dish of beans worthy of 
 the approving nod with which Eossini welcomes a perfectly 
 successful effort. 
 
 The doctor, while studying for his degree at Paris, had 
 followed Eouelle's course of chemistry, and had picked up 
 some notions, which he turned to account in culinary chem- 
 istry. He is remembered at Issoudun for various improve- 
 ments little known beyond the limits of le Berry. He dis- 
 covered that an omelette is far more delicate when the white 
 and yolk of the eggs are not beaten together in the rough-and- 
 ready fashion in which most cooks perform the operation. 
 By his recipe, the white should be beaten to a stifE froth, and 
 the yolk added by degrees. Then it should not be cooked in 
 a frying-pan, but in a cagnard of china or earthenware. A 
 cagnard is a sort of thick dish on four feet, which, when it is 
 placed on the charcoal stove, allow the air to surround it, and 
 prevent its cracking. In Touraine, the cagnard is called a 
 cauquemarre. Eabelais, I think, speaks of a cauquemarre for 
 cooking the eoquecigrues, which shows the high antiquity of 
 the utensil. The doctor had also discovered a way of pre- 
 
 10 
 
146 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 venting the burnt flavor of brown sauce, but this secret, which 
 he unfortunately kept in h's own kitchen, has been lost. 
 
 Flore, born with the gift of frying and roasting, the two 
 arts which neither study nor experience can acquire, was soon 
 Fanchette's superior. In making herself a cordon bleu, she 
 was thinking of Jean- Jacques' comfort ; still, she too, it must 
 be owned, was not a little greedy. Like all uneducated per- 
 sons, being unable to occupy her brain, she expended her 
 energies in the house. She rubbed up the furniture, restored 
 its lustre, and kept everything throughout the house in a state 
 of cleanliness worthy of Holland. She directed the ava- 
 lanches of dirty linen, and the deluge known as a great wash, 
 which, in the French provinces, takes place but three times 
 a year. She examined the linen with a housewifely eye, and 
 mended it with care. Then, anxious to initiate herself by 
 degrees into the secrets of wealth, she mastered the small 
 knowledge of business possessed by Eouget, and increased it 
 by talking with Monsieur Heron, the late doctor's notary. 
 Thus she could give her little Jean-Jacques excellent advice. 
 Sure, as she was, of remaining mistress of the position, she 
 nursed the poor fellow's interests with as much care and parsi- 
 mony as if they had been her own. She had nothing to fear 
 from her uncle's demands. Two months after the doctor's 
 death. Brazier died of a fall as he came out of the tavern 
 where, since fortune had visited him, he passed all his time. 
 Flore's father was also dead; thus she served her master with 
 all the affection due from an orphan who was happy to be able 
 to make herself a home and find some interest in life. 
 
 This period was paradise to poor Jean-Jacques, who ac- 
 quired the easy habits of an animal existence, graced by a 
 sort of monastic regularity. He slept very late in the morn- 
 ing; Flore, who was up at daybreak to buy provisions or do 
 the work of the house, woke her master in time for him to 
 find breakfast ready as soon as he was dressed. After break- 
 fast, at about eleven o'clock, Jean- Jacques took a walk, chatted 
 with any one he met, came home by three o'clock to read the 
 papers — that of the department, and a Paris paper, which he 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 147 
 
 received three days after publication, greasy from thirty hands 
 through which they had passed, dirty from the snufEy noses 
 that smeared them, brown from the many tables they had 
 lain on. Thus our bachelor got to the dinner-hour, and he 
 spent as long a time as he could over it. Flore told him 
 stories of the town, and all the current gossip she had picked 
 up. By eight o'clock the lights were out. Early to bed is, 
 in the country, a common form of saving in candles and firing, 
 but it tends to stupefy folks by an abuse of bed; too much 
 sleep deadens and stultifies the mind. 
 
 Such, for nine years, was the life of these two beings — a 
 life at once busy and vacuous, of which the chief events were 
 a few journeys to Bourges, to Vierzon, to Chateauroux, or even 
 a little further, when neither Monsieur Heron nor the notaries 
 of those towns had any mortgages to offer. Kouget invested 
 his money in first mortgages at five per cent, with substitu- 
 tion in favor of the wife when the lender should marry. He 
 never advanced more than a third of the real value of the 
 estate, and he had bills drawn to his order representing an 
 additional two and a half per cent, for dates at intervals dur- 
 ing the loan. These were the rules impressed on him by his 
 father. Usury, the drag on peasant ambitions, is eating up 
 the land, and this charge of seven and a half per cent seemed 
 so reasonable, that Jean-Jacques Eouget could pick and 
 choose ; for the notaries, who extracted handsome commissions 
 from the clients for whom they got money so cheap, would 
 give the old fellow notice. 
 
 During these nine years, Flore gradually, insensibly, and 
 without intending it, had acquired absolute dominion over her 
 master. From the first she treated Jean-Jacques with great 
 familiarity; then, without failing in respect, she gained the 
 upper hand by such manifest superiority of intelligence and 
 power, that he became his servant's servant. This grown- 
 up child went half-way to meet this dominion, by allowing 
 himself to be so much waited on, that Flore treated him as 
 a mother treats her son. And at last his feeling for her was 
 that which makes a mother's care necessary to a child. But 
 
148 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 there were other and far stronger bonds. In the first place. 
 More managed all business matters, and carried on the house. 
 Jean-Jacques relied on her so absolutely for every kind of 
 stewardship that, without her, life would have seemed to him 
 not difficult, but impossible. The woman had also become 
 necessary to his existence; she humored all his fancies — she 
 knew them so well! He liked to see the happy face that 
 always smiled on him; the only face that ever had smiled on 
 him, or that ever would smile on him ! Her happiness, purely 
 material, expressed by the common phrases that are the back- 
 bone of language in the households of le Berry, and expansive 
 in her splendid person, was, in a way, the reflection of his 
 own. The state into which Jean-Jacques collapsed when he 
 saw Flore clouded by some little annoyance betrayed to the 
 woman the extent of her power; and she, to secure it, would 
 try to exert it. In women of that kind use always means 
 abuse. La Eabouilleuse, no doubt, made her master play his 
 part in some of the scenes that lie buried in the mystery of 
 private life, and of which Otway has shown a specimen in 
 the midst of his tragedy of Venice Preserved between the 
 Senator and Aquilina- — a scene that gives the magnificence 
 of horror. And then Flore saw herself so secure in her em- 
 pire, that she never thought of getting the old bachelor to 
 marry her, unfortunately for him and for herself. 
 
 By the end of 1815, at the age of twenty-seven, Flore was 
 in the fullest bloom of her beauty. Buxom and fair, as white- 
 skinned as a farmeress of le Bessin, she was the ideal of what 
 our forefathers would have called a splendid wench. Her 
 beauty, somewhat of the inn-servant order, but filled-out and 
 well-fed, gave her some resemblance, apart from Mademoiselle- 
 Georges' imperial beauty, to that actress at her best. Flore 
 had the same beautiful, dazzling white arms, the fulness of 
 outline, the pulpy sheen, the delicious modeling, but all less 
 classically severe. The expression of her face was tender 
 and sweet. Her eye could not command respect, like that 
 of the most beautiful Agrippine who has ever trod the boards 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 149 
 
 of the Theatre Frangais since Eacine's time; it invited to 
 sensual joys. 
 
 In 1816 la Eabouilleuse first saw Maxence Gilet, and fell 
 in love with him at first sight. Her heart was pierced by the 
 mythological dart — that admirable symbol of a natural fact 
 which the Greeks inevitably represented thus, having never 
 conceived of the chivalrous ideal and melancholy passion 
 begotten of Christianity. Flore was at this time too hand- 
 some for Max to scorn such a conquest. And thus, at eight- 
 and-twenty, the girl first knew real love, idolatrous, infinite 
 love, the love which includes every mode of loving from that 
 of Giilnare to that of Medora. As soon as the penniless 
 officer understood the respective positions of Flore and Jean- 
 Jacques Eouget, he saw something better than a mere love 
 affair in a connection with la Eabouilleuse. And so, for the 
 better security of his future prospects, he was more than con- 
 tent to lodge under Eouget's roof, seeing how weakly a 
 creature the old fellow was. 
 
 Flore's passion could not fail to have its influence on Jean- 
 Jacques' life and surroundings. For a month Eouget, who 
 had become excessively afraid of her, saw Flore's smiling and 
 friendly face grown gloomy and cross. He endured the brunt 
 of intentional ill-temper exactly like a married man whose 
 wife is contemplating a betrayal. When in the midst of her 
 most spiteful outbreaks the hapless man made so bold as to 
 ask the cause of this change, her eyes flashed with fires of 
 hatred, and her voice was hard with aggressive tones of scorn, 
 such as poor Jean-Jacques had never met nor heard. 
 
 "By Heaven !" she exclaimed, "you have neither heart nor 
 soul. For sixteen years have I been wasting my youth here, 
 and I never discovered that you had a stone there !" and she 
 struck her heart. "For two months past you have seen that 
 brave Major coming here, a victim to the Bourbons, who was 
 cut out for a General, and who is down on his luck, driven 
 into a hole of a place like this, where Fortune is too poor to 
 go out walking. He is obliged to sit, stuck to a chair all day 
 in an office, to earn what? Six hundred wretched francs — 
 
150 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 a handsome income! And you, who have six hundred and 
 fifty-nine thousand francs in snug investments, and sixty 
 thousand francs a year — ^not to say that, thanks to me, you 
 don't spend a thousand crowns a year for everything in- 
 cluded, even my clothes — ^in short, everything — ^you never 
 think of offering him shelter here, where the whole top floor 
 is empty! No, you would let the rats and mice keep up a 
 dance there rather than put a human being in, and he a man 
 your father always regarded as his son! — Do you want to 
 know what you are ? Well, I will tell you — ^you are a fratri- 
 cide ! And you think I don't know why ? You saw that I 
 felt an interest in him, and that nettled you ! For all that 
 you seem such a blockhead, you have more cunning in you 
 than the cunningest, and that is what you are. . . . Very 
 well then, I do take an interest in him ... a warm one 
 at that . . ." 
 
 "But, Flore . . ." 
 
 "Oh, there is no ^but, Flore,' in the case. You may go 
 and look for another Flore — if you can find one! — For may 
 this glass of wine poison me if I don't turn out of your hovel 
 of a house ! I shall have cost you nothing, thank God, dur- 
 ing the twelve years I have stayed in it, and you have had 
 your comforts cheap ! Anywhere else I could have earned 
 my living by working as I do here ; washing, ironing, taking 
 care of the linen, going to market, cooking, looking after your 
 interests in every way, slaving to death from morning till 
 night. — And this is what I get 1" 
 
 "But, Flore . . ." 
 
 "Oh yes, Flore indeed! A pretty Flore you will get, at 
 fifty-one, as you are, and in very bad health, and stooping so 
 that it is frightful to see — I know all about it. And with all 
 that you are not so very amusing . . ." 
 
 "But, Flore . . ." 
 
 "There, leave me in peace." 
 
 And she left the room, slamming the door with such 
 violence that the house rang with it and seemed to shake on 
 its foundations. Jean-Jacques Kouget opened it very gently. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 161 
 
 and more gently still went into the kitchen where Flore was 
 muttering. 
 
 "But, Flore," said this sheep, "this is the very first I have 
 heard of your wishes ; how can you tell whether I will or will 
 not?" 
 
 "In the first place," she went on, "we ought to have a man 
 in the house. It is known that you have ten, fifteen, twenty 
 thousand francs, and if any one wanted to rob you we should 
 be murdered. For my part, I have no wish to wake up one 
 fine morning cut into four quarters, like the poor servant girl 
 who was fool enough to try to defend her master. Well! 
 But if it were known that we had a man on the premises who 
 is as brave as Cagsar, and has the use of his hands — Max 
 could settle three thieves while you were talking about it. — 
 Well, I say, I should sleep easier. People will cram you with 
 nonsense. Here, I am in love with him ; there, I adore him ! 
 Do you know what you have got to say ? Well, just tell them 
 that you know all that, but your father told you on his death- 
 bed to take care of his poor Max. Then every one must hold 
 their tongue, for the flagstones of Issoudun could tell you that 
 your father paid for his schooling — so there ! For nine years 
 I have eaten your bread . . ." 
 
 "Flore, Flore . . ." 
 
 "And more than one young fellow in this town has come 
 to me a-courtin' — so there ! — And one offers me a gold chain, 
 and another a gold watch: 'Dear little Flore, if only you 
 would come away from that old idiot of a Eouget,' that is the 
 sort of thing they say of you ! 'What, I ! leave him ? — I 
 should think so ! such an innocent as that. — Why, what would 
 become of him?' I have always answered. 'No, no, where 
 a Nanny is tethered she must eat . . .' " 
 
 "Yes, Flore, I have no one in the world but you, and I am 
 only too happy. If it will give you pleasure, child, we wUl 
 have Maxence Gilet in the house ; he can eat with us . . ." 
 
 "By Heaven ! I should hope so !" 
 
 "There, there, don't be angry . . ." 
 
 "Enough for one is enough for two," said she, laughing. 
 
152 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "But now, if you are very nice, do you know what you will 
 do, my dear old boy? You will take a turn in front of the 
 Mairie at about four o'clock, and manage to meet Major Gilet, 
 and ask him to dinner. If he makes any difficulties, tell him 
 it is to please me ; he is too polite to refuse that. And then, 
 over your dessert, if he talks of his misfortunes, or of the 
 hulks — and you can surely have sense enough to lead up to 
 the subject — ^you will offer him a home here. If he makes 
 any objection, never mind; I will find a way to persuade 
 him " 
 
 As he slowly paced the Boulevard Baron, Rouget, so far as 
 he was capable, thought over this incident. If he were to part 
 with Flore — and the mere idea made him dizzy — what woman 
 could he find to take her place? Marry? At his age he 
 would be married for his money, and even more cruelly 
 handled by a legitimate wife than he was by Flore. Moreover, 
 the notion of being bereft of her affection, even if it were a 
 delusion, was intolerably painful. So he was as charming to 
 Major Gilet as he knew how to be. As Flore had wished, the 
 invitation was given in the presence of witnesses, so as to 
 leave Max's honor clear. 
 
 Flore and her master were reconciled; but from that day 
 Jean-Jacques was aware of shades of demeanor proving a 
 complete change in la Rabouilleuse's affection for him. 
 
 For about a fortnight Flore complained loudly to the trades- 
 people, at market, and to her gossips, of Monsieur Rouget's 
 tyranny in taking it into his head to have his natural half- 
 brother under his roof. But no one was taken in by this 
 farce, and Flore was considered an extremely shrewd and wily 
 creature. 
 
 Old Eouget was made very happy by the installation of 
 Max as a member of the household, for in him he had a com- 
 panion who was most carefully attentive to him without 
 servility. Gilet chatted, talked politics, and sometimes walked 
 out with him. 
 
 As soon as the officer was quite at home, Flore refused to 
 be cook any longer ; "kitchen work spoiled her hands," she said. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 153 
 
 By desire of the Grand Master of the Order, la Cognette found 
 a relation of her own, an old maid, whose master, a cure, had 
 just died, leaving her nothing, an excellent cook, who would 
 devote herself through life and death to Flore and Max. And, 
 in the name of these two potentates, la Cognette could promise 
 her relation a pension of three hundred francs after ten years 
 of good, honest, and loyal service. La V6die, who was sixty, 
 was remarkable for a face deeply marked by smallpox and of 
 suitable ugliness. 
 
 When she assumed her functions Flore became Mademoiselle 
 Brazier. She wore stays, she dressed in silk, in fine 
 woolen stuffs, or in cambric, according to the season. She 
 had collars, costly kerchiefs, embroidered caps and lace 
 tuckers, wore dainty boots, and kept herself in an elegant and 
 handsome style that made her look younger. She was now 
 like a round diamond that has been cut and set by the jeweler 
 to show off its value. She was anxious to do Max credit. By. 
 the end of that year, 1817, she had procured a horse from 
 Bourges, said to be of English breed, for the poor Major, who 
 was tired of going about on foot. Max had picked up in the 
 neighborhood a man, a Pole named Kouski, formerly a lancer 
 in the Imperial Guard, and now reduced to misery, who was 
 only too glad to find a berth at Monsieur Eouget's as the 
 Major's servant. Max was Kouski's idol, especially after the 
 fray with the three Eoyalists. So after 1817 the Eouget 
 household consisted of five persons, three of them idle; and 
 the expenses amounted to about eight thousand francs a 
 year. 
 
 By the time when Madame Bridau came back to Issoudun 
 to save her inheritance, as Maitre Desroches expressed it, so 
 seriously endangered, Pere Eouget, as he was commonly called, 
 had by degrees lapsed into an almost vegetative existence. To 
 begin with, from the day when Max was at home in the house. 
 Mademoiselle Brazier kept house with quite Episcopal luxury. 
 Eouget, thus led into high living, and tempted by the excel- 
 lent dishes concocted by la Vedie, ate more and more every 
 
154 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 day. Notwithstanding such abundant and nutritious feed- 
 ing, he did not get fat. He grew every day more bent, like a 
 man tired out — perhaps by the effort of digestion — and his 
 eyes sank in puffy circles. Still, when, in his walks, any one 
 asked after his health : "I never was better in my life," was 
 always his reply. As he had always been known to have a 
 most limited intellect, the gradual deterioration of his facul- 
 ties was not observed. His love for Elore was the one 
 emotion that kept him alive; he existed only for her; his weak- 
 ness before her knew no measure; he obeyed her every look 
 and watched this creature's movements as a dog watches his 
 master's least gesture. And, as Madame Hochon said, Pere 
 Kouget, at fifty-seven, looked older than Monsieur Hochon, 
 who was eighty. 
 
 As may easily be supposed, Max's rooms were worthy of so 
 charming a youth. And in six years, year by year, the Major 
 had made the comfort of his lodgings more perfect, and 
 added grace to the smallest details, as much for his own sake 
 as for Flore's. Still, it was only the comfort of Issoudun; 
 painted floors, wall-papers of some elegance, mahogany furni- 
 ture, mirrors in gilt frames, muslin curtains with red bands 
 to loop them, an Arabian bedstead with curtains hung as a 
 country upholsterer arranges them for a wealthy bride, and 
 which then seemed the height of magnificence, but which are 
 to be seen in the commonest fashion-plates, and are so general 
 now that in Paris even petty dealers will not have them when 
 they marry. Then — an unheard-of thing, which gave rise 
 to much talk in Issoudun — there was matting on the stairs, 
 to deaden noise no doubt! And, in fact. Max, as he came 
 in before daybreak, woke nobody, and Eouget never suspected 
 his lodger's share in the dark deeds of the Knights of Idlesse.. 
 
 At about eight in the morning Flore, in a pretty pink- 
 striped cotton wrapper and a lace cap, her feet in furred 
 slippers, gently opened Max's bedroom door, but seeing him 
 asleep, she stood a moment by the bed. 
 
 "He came in so late," thought she ; "at half -past three. A 
 man must be made of iron to be able to stand such racket 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 155 
 
 as that ! And isn't he strong too ? — The love of a man ! I 
 wonder what they were doing last night !" 
 
 "You, my little Flore," said Max, waking as a soldier wakes, 
 inured by the vicissitudes of war to find all his wits and his 
 presence of mind however suddenly he may be roused. 
 
 "You are sleepy ; I am going . . ." 
 
 "No, stay ; there are serious things " 
 
 "You have done something too mad last night?" 
 
 "Ah, pooh! The matter in hand concerns that old fool. 
 Look here; you never mentioned his family. Well, they are 
 coming here — ^his family is coming, to cut us out no doubt." 
 
 "Oh, I will give them a startler !" said Flore. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Brazier," said Max gravely, "matters are 
 too serious to be taken at a rush. Send me up my coffee; 
 I will have it in bed, where I will consider what proceedings 
 we must take. . . . Come back at nine, and we will talk 
 it over. Meanwhile behave as if you had heard nothing." 
 
 Startled by this news, Flore left Max, and went to make 
 his coffee; but a quarter of an hour later Baruch rushed in 
 and said to the Grand Master, "Fario is looking for his cart." 
 
 Max was dressed in five minutes, went downstairs, and with 
 an air of lounging for his pleasure, made his way to the foot 
 of the tower hill, where he saw a considerable crowd. 
 
 "What is the matter ?" said Max, making his way through 
 the mob to speak to the Spaniard. 
 
 Fario, a small, shriveled man, was ugly enough to have 
 been a grandee. His very fiery, very small eyes, very close 
 together, would have earned him at Naples a reputation for 
 the evil eye. The little man seemed gentle because he was 
 grave, quiet, and slow in his movements; and he was com- 
 monly spoken of as bonhomme, good old Fario. But his com- 
 plexion, of the color of gingerbread, and his gentle manner, 
 concealed from the ignorant, but betrayed to the knowing, 
 his character as a half -Moorish peasant from Granada, who 
 had not yet been roused from his torpid indifference. 
 
 "But are you sure," said Max, after listening to the lamenta- 
 tions of the seed-merchant, "that you brought your cart? For, 
 thank Heaven, we have no thieves in Issoudun . . ," 
 
156 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "I left it there . . ." 
 
 "But if the horse was harnessed to it, may he not have gone 
 away with the cart ?" 
 
 "There is my horse," said Fario, pointing to his steed stand- 
 ing harnessed about thirty yards off. 
 
 Max solemnly went to the spot, so as to be able by looking 
 up to see the foot of the tower, for the people had collected at 
 the bottom of the hill. Everybody followed him, and this 
 was what the rascal wanted. 
 
 "Has any one by mistake put a cart in his pocket ?" cried 
 Frangois. 
 
 "Come, feel, turn them out!" said Baruch. Shouts of 
 laughter rose on all sides. Fario swore; now in a Spaniard 
 an oath means the last pitch of fury. 
 
 "Is yours a light cart ?" asked Max. 
 
 "Light?" retorted Fario. "If aU those who are laughing 
 at me had it over their toes, their corns would not hurt them 
 again." 
 
 "Well, but it must be devilish light," replied Max, pointing 
 to the tower, "for it has flown to the top of the hill." 
 
 At these words all looked up, and for a moment there was 
 almost a riot in the market-place. Every one was pointing 
 to this magical vehicle. Every tongue was wagging. 
 
 "The Devil has a care for the innkeepers, who are all 
 doomed to perdition," said Goddet to the speechless owner; 
 "he wants to teach you not to leave carts about instead of 
 putting up at the inn." 
 
 At this speech the mob howled, for Fario was reckoned 
 miserly. 
 
 "Come, my good man," said Max, "do not lose heart. We 
 will go up and see how the cart got there. The deuce is in 
 it ! We will lend you a hand. Will you come, Baruch ? — 
 You," he added in a whisper to Frangois, "clear every one out 
 of the way, and mind there is no one standing below when 
 you see us at the top." 
 
 Fario, with Max, Baruch, and three more of the Knights, 
 climbed up to the tower. During the scramble, which was 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 157 
 
 not free from danger. Max remarked to Fario that there were 
 no tracks, nor anything to show how the cart had been got 
 up. And Fario began to believe in some magic ; he had quite 
 lost his head. On reaching the top and examining matters, 
 the feat seriously seemed quite impossible. 
 
 "And however shall we get it down again?" said the 
 Spaniard, whose little eyes expressed positive terror, while 
 his tawny hollow face, which looked as if it could never 
 change color, turned pale. 
 
 "Well," said Max, "I see no difficulty in that." 
 
 And taking advantage of Fario's bewilderment, he took the 
 cart up by the shafts, giving it a tilt with his strong arms 
 so as to give it impetus; then, at the moment when he let it 
 go, he shouted in a voice of thunder, "Look out below !" But 
 there was no danger. The crowd, warned by Frangois, and 
 eager with curiosity, had withdrawn to a little distance to 
 see what was going on on the knoll. The cart smashed in 
 picturesque style, broken into a thousand pieces. 
 
 "There, it is down again !" said Baruch. 
 
 "Ah, blackguards, thieves, villains!" yelled Fario. "It 
 was you who got it up, I'll be bound !" 
 
 Max, Baruch, and their three comrades began to laugh at 
 the Spaniard's abuse. 
 
 "We wanted to do you a service," said Max haughtily. "To 
 save your damned cart I ran the risk of going down on the top 
 of it, and this is how you thank me. What country do you 
 come from, pray?" 
 
 "From a country where we do not forgive an injury," re- 
 plied Fario, quivering with rage. "My cart may serve you a 
 turn to take you to the Devil! Unless," he added, as mild 
 as a lamb, "you like to replace it by a new one ?" 
 
 "We will talk about it," said Max, going down the hill. 
 
 When they were at the bottom, and had rejoined the first 
 group of laughers. Max took Fario by the jacket-button, and 
 said: 
 
 "Yes, my good Fario, I will make you a present of a 
 splendid cart if you will give me two hundred and fifty francs j 
 
158 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 I won't guarantee that, like this one, it is warranted for a 
 tumbler's trap." 
 
 This jest, however, touched Pario no more than if he were 
 concluding an ordinary bargain. 
 
 "Dame!" he replied calmly, "you will give me francs 
 enough to replace my poor cart, and you will never spend 
 Pere Eouget's money in a better cause." 
 
 Max turned white and lifted his formidable fist to strike 
 Fario; but Baruch, who knew that such a blow would not 
 fall only on the Spaniard, whisked him off like a feather, say- 
 ing to Max in an undertone, "Don't play the fool !" 
 
 The Major, recalled to order, began to laugh, and said to 
 Fario, "Though I have by accident damaged your cart, you 
 are trying to slander me, so we are quits." 
 
 "Not yet," muttered Fario. "But I am glad to have found 
 out what my cart is worth !" 
 
 "Ah, ha! Max, you have found your match!" said a by- 
 stander, who was not a member of the Order. 
 
 "Good-bye, Monsieur Gilet ; you have not heard the last of 
 your clever trick!" said the Spaniard, mounting his horse 
 and disappearing in the midst of a loud hurrah ! 
 
 "I will keep the iron tires for you," cried a wheelwright, 
 who had come out to study the effects of the fall. One of the 
 shafts was standing upright, planted in the ground like a 
 tree. 
 
 Max was pale and thoughtful, stung to the heart by the 
 Spaniard's speech. For five days at Issoudun Fario's cart 
 was the talk of the town. It was fated to travel far, as 
 young Goddet said, for it made the round of the province, 
 where the pranks of Max and Baruch were much discussed. 
 Hence, even a week after the event, the Spaniard was still 
 the talk of the departments and the subject of much "jaw," 
 a fact to which he was keenly alive. Max and la Eabouilleuse, 
 too, as a result of the vindictive Spaniard's retort, were the 
 subject of endless comments, whispered indeed at Issoudun, 
 but loudly spoken at Bourges, at Vatan, at Vierzon, and at 
 Chateauroux. Maxence Gilet knew the country well enough 
 to imagine how envenomed these remarks must be. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 159 
 
 "No one can hinder their talking," thought he. "Ah! 
 that was a bad night's work." 
 
 "Well, Max," said Frangois, taking his arm, "they are to 
 be here to-night." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "The Bridans. My grandmother has just had a letter 
 from her goddaughter." 
 
 "Listen to me, my boy," said Max in his ear; "I have 
 thought this business over very seriously. Neither Flore nor I 
 must appear to have any ill-feeling towards the Bridaus. If 
 the heirs leave Issoudun, it is your people, the Hochons, who 
 must seem to be the cause. Study these Paris folks well ; and 
 when I have taken their measure, to-morrow at la Co- 
 gnette's we will see what can be done with them, and how we 
 can make a breach between them and your grandfather." 
 
 "The Spaniard has found the joint in Max's harness," said 
 Baruch to his cousin Frangois as they went in, looking at his 
 friend entering Eouget's door. 
 
 While Max was thus occupied, Flore, notwithstanding her 
 companion's counsel, had been unable to control her rage; 
 without knowing whether she was seconding or interfering 
 with Max's plans, she broke out against the poor old bachelor. 
 When Jean-Jacques incurred his nurse's displeasure, he found 
 himself suddenly bereft of all the little cares and vulgar 
 petting which were the joy of his life. In short, Flore put 
 her master in disgrace. No more little affectionate words 
 with which she was wont to grace her conversation, in various 
 tones, with more or less tender glances — my puss, my chicken, 
 my good old dog, my spoilt boy. No more familiar tu. A 
 vous^ short and cold, and ironically respectful, would pierce 
 the unhappy man's heart like a knife. This vous was a 
 declaration of war. 
 
 Then, instead of helping him to dress, giving him his 
 things, anticipating his wishes, looking at him with the sort 
 of admiration women know how to convey — and the broader 
 it is, the more gratifying — saying, "You are as fresh as a 
 
leO A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 rose ! Come, you look wonderfully well ! How fine you are, 
 old man !" — instead of entertaining him while he dressed with 
 the fun and follies that amused him, Flore left him to manage 
 for himself. If he called her, she would answer from the 
 bottom of the stairs : 
 
 "Well, I can't do two things at once — ^get your breakfast 
 and wait on you in your room. Aren't you old enough to 
 dress yourself ?" 
 
 "Good God! How have I offended her?" the old fellow 
 wondered, on receiving one of these rebuffs, when he called 
 for some hot water to shave himself. 
 
 "Vedie, take up some hot water to monsieur," cried More. 
 
 "Vedie?" said the poor man, bewildered by his dread 
 of the wrath impending over him. "Vedie, what is the mat- 
 ter with madame this morning ?" 
 
 Flore insisted on being called madame by her master, by 
 Vedie, Kouski, and Max. 
 
 "She has heard something seemingly not much to your 
 credit," replied Vedie, putting on a very pathetic air. "You 
 are very foolish, monsieur. There, I am but a poor servant, 
 and you may tell me not to be poking my nose into your con- 
 cerns ; but you may hunt through all the women in the world, 
 like the King in Holy Writ, and you will never find her like. 
 You ought to kiss the place where she has set her foot. . . 
 I tell you, if you vex her, it will be enough to break your own 
 heart ! And there really were tears in her eyes." 
 
 V6die left the poor man quite annihilated; he sank into 
 a chair, gazing into space like a man melancholy mad, and 
 forgot to shave himself. These alternations of hot and cold 
 affected the poor feeble creature, who lived only through his 
 hold on love, like the deadly chill produced by a sudden pas- 
 sage from tropical heat to polar cold. They were moral 
 pleurisies which exhausted him like so many illnesses. Flore 
 only in the whole world could act upon him so, for to her 
 alone he was as kind as he was silly. 
 
 "What ! You have not shaved yet ?" said she, opening the 
 door. She made Pere Eouget start violently; from being 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 161 
 
 pale and limp, he suddenly turned red for a moment, but 
 dared not resent this attack. 
 
 "Your breakfast is waiting. But you may go down in your 
 dressing-gown and slippers — you will breakfast by yourself." 
 
 And she vanished without waiting for a reply. To make 
 the poor man breakfast alone was one of the punishments 
 which most deeply distressed him; he liked to talk while he 
 was eating. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Eouget 
 was seized with a fit of coughing, for excitement had stirred 
 his rheum. 
 
 "Oh yes, you may cough!" said Flore in the kitchen, not 
 caring whether her master heard her or no. "My word ! the 
 old wretch is strong enough to weather it without any one 
 troubling theirselves about him! If he ever coughs his soul 
 up, it won't be in our time." 
 
 Such were the amenities with which la Eabouilleuse favored 
 Eouget in her fits of rage. The poor man sat down in deep 
 dejection at a corner of the table in the middle of the room, 
 looking at his old furniture and old pictures with a desolate 
 air. 
 
 "You might have put on a necktie!" said Flore, coming 
 in. "Do you think a neck like yours is pretty to see — redder 
 and more wrinkled than a turkey-cock's." 
 
 "But what have I done?" he asked, raising his pale green 
 eyes full of tears, and confronting Flore's cold look. 
 
 "What have you done ?" she echoed. "And you don't know ? 
 What a hypocrite ! Why, your sister Agathe — who is as much 
 your sister as I am sister to the Tower of Issoudun, if you 
 can believe your father, and who is nothing on earth to you — 
 is coming from Paris with her son, that wretched tu'penny 
 painter, and they're coming to see you " . 
 
 "My sister and nephews are coming to Issoudun?" said 
 he, quite bewildered. 
 
 "Oh yes; you may pretend to be astonished, to make me 
 
 believe that you did not write to them to come! That is a 
 
 very thin trick. Don't be afraid, we won't interfere with your 
 
 Paris friends, for we shall have shaken the dust off our feet 
 
 II 
 
162 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 before they set theirs within these walls ! Max and I shall 
 be gone never to return ! As to your will — I will tear it in 
 four quarters under your nose, under your beard, do you 
 hear ? You may leave your goods to your family, as we are 
 not your family. After that you will see whether you are 
 loved, for your own sake, by people who have not seen you for 
 thirty years, or have never seen you at all ! Your sister will 
 not fill my place — a double-distilled bigot !" 
 
 "If that is all, my pretty Flore," said the old man, "I shall 
 see neither my sister nor my nephews. I swear to you sol- 
 emnly that this is the first word I have heard of their arrival, 
 and it is a got-up thing arranged by Madame Hochon, the old 
 bigot !" 
 
 Max, who had heard Pere Eouget's reply, suddenly came in, 
 saying in a hectoring tone, "What is the matter ?" 
 
 "My good Max," the old man went on, only too glad to 
 purchase the Major's adhesion, for, by agreement with Flore, 
 he was always to take Eouget's part, "I swear to you, by all 
 that is sacred, that I have only this instant heard the news. 
 I never wrote to my sister; my father made me promise to 
 leave her nothing, to give it rather to the Church — in short, 
 I refuse to see either my sister Agathe or her sons." 
 
 "Your father was wrong, my dear Jean-Jacques, and mad- 
 ame is yet more wrong," replied Max. "Your father had 
 his own reasons — he is dead, his hatred ought to die with him. 
 Your sister is your sister, your nephews are your nephews. 
 You owe it to yourself to receive them cordially, and you owe 
 it to us too. What would be said in Issoudun? Sss — 
 thunder! I have enough on my shoulders; the only thing 
 wanting is to give rise to a report that we keep you shut up, 
 that you are not a free agent, that we have incensed you 
 against your heirs, that we are trying to possess ourselves of 
 your fortune. . The Devil may take me if I don't 
 
 desert from the service at the very next calumny ; one is quite 
 enough ! — Let us have breakfast." 
 
 Flore, as meek as a mouse, helped Vedie to lay the table. 
 Eouget, filled with admiration for Max, took him by both 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 163 
 
 hands, led him into a window bay, and said to him in an un- 
 dertone : 
 
 "Ah, Max, if I had a son, I should not love him so well as I 
 love you. Flore was right in saying that you two are my 
 family. . . . You have a sense of honor. Max, and all 
 you have said is very right " 
 
 "You ought to entertain your sister and your nephew," said 
 Max, interrupting him, "but ought not to alter your will ; thus 
 you will satisfy your father and everybody else." 
 
 "Come, my little dears !" cried Flore, in cheerful tones, "the 
 salmis will be cold. There, old boy, there is a wing for you," 
 she said, smiling on Jean-Jacques. 
 
 At this speech the old fellow's long face lost its cadaverous 
 tints, a treacly smile played on his flabby lips ; but he coughed 
 again, for the joy of being received again into favor excited 
 him as greatly as being in disgrace. Flore sprang up, 
 snatched a little cashmere shawl off her shoulders, and 
 wrapped it round the old man's throat as a comforter, 
 saying: 
 
 "It is silly to upset yourself so over trifles. Here, foolish 
 old boy, that will do you good — it has been next my heart 
 
 "What a good soul !" said Eouget to Max, while Flore went 
 off for a black velvet cap to cover the old fellow's almost bald 
 head. 
 
 "As good as she is handsome," replied Max; "but a little 
 hasty, like all those who carry their heart in their hand." 
 
 The reader may feel inclined to find fault with the 
 crudities of this picture, and to think that the displays of la 
 Eabouilleuse's temper are marked by some truths which the 
 painter should leave in the shade? Well; this scene, a hun- 
 dred times repeated with horrible variations, is in all its 
 coarse and repulsive veraciousness the type of that which 
 every woman will play, on whatever rung of the social ladder 
 she may stand, if any kind of self-interest has diverted her 
 from the path of obedience, and she has seized the reins of 
 power. To women as to great politicians — ^the end justifies 
 
164 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 any means. Between Flore Brazier and a duchess, between 
 the duchess and the richest tradesman's wife, between the 
 tradesman's wife and the most splendidly kept woman, there 
 are no differences but those due to education and to the atmos- 
 phere in which they live. A fine lady's sulks take the place 
 of Flore's violence; in every rank bitter taunts, witty sarcasms, 
 cold disdain, hypocritical whining, afEected quarrels, are quite 
 as successful as the low abuse of this Madame Everard of 
 Issoudun. 
 
 Max told the story of Fario with so much drollery that he , 
 made the old fellow laugh. Vedie and Kouski, who had come 
 up to listen to the tale, exploded in the passage. As for 
 Flore, she laughed hysterically. After breakfast, while Jean- 
 Jacques was reading the papers — for they now subscribed 
 to the Constitutionnel and the Pandore — Max took Flore up 
 to his room. 
 
 "Are you certain," said he, "that he has never made an- 
 other will since he named you as his legatee ?" 
 
 "He has no writing things," said she. 
 
 "He may have dictated one to some notary," said Max. "If 
 he has not done so, we must be prepared for the contingency. 
 So receive the Bridaus as well as possible; but meanwhile 
 we must try, as soon as we can, to realize all the money out on 
 mortgage. Our notaries will be only too glad to effect the 
 transfers ; that is what they eat and drink by. State securities 
 are going up every day; we are to conquer Spain and deliver 
 Ferdinand VII. from his Cortes, so next year they may per- 
 haps be above par. So it will be a good stroke of business 
 to invest the old man's seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs in the funds at 89. Only try and get them put into 
 your name. It will always be something saved from the fire." 
 
 "A capital idea," said Flore. 
 
 "And as on eight hundred and ninety thousand francs he 
 will draw fifty thousand francs a year, you must get him to 
 borrow a hundred and forty thousand francs for two years, 
 to be repaid in two instalments. Thus in two years we shall 
 be drawing a hundred thousand francs from Paris and ninety 
 thousand here, so we risk nothing." 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 165 
 
 "Without you, my splendid Max, what would have become 
 of us !" said she. 
 
 "Oh, to-morrow eveuing, at la Cognette's, after I have seen 
 this Paris couple, I will find some means of making the 
 Hoehons themselves see them off the premises." 
 
 "Oh, you are so clever! You are an angel, a love of a 
 man !" 
 
 The Place Saint-Jean is situated half-way dovm a street 
 called la Grande Narette in the upper part, and la Petite 
 Narette below. In le Berry the word Karette means the 
 same sort of highway as the Genoese Salita,, a street built 
 on a steep slope. Between the Place Saint-Jeanandthe Vilatte 
 gate, the Karette is excessively steep. Old Monsieur Hochon's 
 house is opposite to that where lived Jean-Jacques Eouget. 
 What was going on at Pere Eouget's could often be seen out of 
 the drawing-room window where Madame Hochon sat, and 
 vice versa, when the curtains were undrawn or the doors left 
 open. 
 
 Hochon's house is so much like Eouget's that they were, 
 no doubt, built by the same architect. Hochon, long ago 
 the collector of taxes at SeUes, was born at Issoudun, and re- 
 turned thither to marry the sister of the sub-delegate, the 
 gallant Lousteau, exchanging his post at Selles for a similar 
 one at Issoudun. He had retired before 1787, and so escaped 
 the storms of the Eevolution, while fully supporting its prin- 
 ciples, like all honest men who shout on the winning side. It 
 was not for nothing that Monsieur Hochon had a reputation 
 for avarice. But would it not be mere vain repetition to 
 describe him? One of the miserly acts, which made him 
 famous, will, no doubt, be enough to paint Monsieur Hochon 
 at full length. 
 
 At the time of his daughter's marriage to a Borniche — she 
 was since dead — it was necessary to give a dinner to the Bor- 
 niche family. The bridegroom, who expected to inherit a fine 
 fortune, died soon after of grief at having failed in busi- 
 ness, and yet more at his father's and mother's refusal to 
 
166 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 help him. These old Bomiches were still living, delighted 
 to have seen Monsieur Hochon take the guardianship of his 
 grandchildren on account of his daughter's settlement, which 
 he had succeeded in saving. 
 
 On the day when the marriage contract was to be signed, 
 all the relations of both families had assembled in the draw- 
 ing-room — the Hochons on one side, and the Bomiches on 
 the other, all in their Sunday best. In the midst of reading 
 the contract, very solemnly performed by young Heron the 
 notary, the cook came in and asked Monsieur Hochon for some 
 pack-thread to truss the turkey — an important item in the 
 bill of fare. The old tax-collector pulled out of the depths 
 of his coat-pocket an end of string, which had, no doubt, 
 tied up some parcel, and gave it to her ; but before the woman 
 had reached the door, he called out, "Gritte, let me have it 
 back !" Gritte is a local abbreviation of Marguerite. 
 
 This will enable you to understand Monsieur Hochon, and 
 the joke perpetrated by the town on the name of the family, 
 consisting of the father, mother, and three children — Us cinq 
 cochons, the five pigs. 
 
 As years went by old Hochon became more and more nig- 
 gardly and careful, and he was now eighty-five years of age. 
 He was one of those who will stoop in the street, in the midst 
 of an animated conversation, to pick up a pin, saying, "That 
 is a woman's wage !" and stick it into his coat cuff. He com- 
 plained bitterly of the inferior quality of cloth nowadays, re- 
 marking that his coat had lasted only ten years. Tall, lean, 
 and bony, with a yellow complexion, speaking little, reading 
 little, never fatiguing himself, as ceremonious as an Oriental, 
 he maintained a rule of strict sobriety in his household, doling 
 out food and drink to his fairly numerous family, consisting 
 of his wife nee Lousteau, of his grandson Baruch and grand- 
 daughter Adolphine, the heirs of the old Bomiches, and of his 
 other grandson, Frangois Hochon. 
 
 His eldest son, caught for the army in 1813 by the levy of 
 men of respectable birth who escaped the conscription, and 
 who were enrolled under the name of guards of honor, was 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 167 
 
 killed at the battle of Hanau. The heir-presumptive had 
 married, very young, a rich woman, hoping thus to evade any 
 call to arms ; but then he ran through all his money, foresee- 
 ing the end. His wife, who followed the French army at a 
 distance, died at Strasbourg in 1814-, leaving debts which old 
 Hochon would not pay, quoting to the creditors the asiom of 
 a past code, ''Women are minors." 
 
 So folks could still say les cinq Hochons, since the house- 
 hold consisted of three grandchildren and two grandparents; 
 and the jest still survived, for in the country no jest grows 
 too stale. Gritte, now sixty years old, managed all the work 
 of the house. 
 
 The house, though spacious, was scantily furnished. How- 
 ever, Madame Bridau could be very decently lodged in two 
 rooms on the second floor. Old Hochon now repented of 
 having kept two beds in these rooms, and belonging to each 
 an old armchair in unvarnished wood, with a worsted-work 
 seat, and a walnut wood table, on which stood a wide-mouthed 
 water jug in- a basin edged with blue. The old man kept 
 his apples and winter pears, his quinces and medlars, on straw 
 in these two rooms, where the rats and mice had a high time, 
 and there was a strong flavor of fruit and mice. Madame 
 Hochon had everything cleaned; the paper, where it had 
 fallen from the walls, was stuck on again with wafers; she 
 furnished the windows with muslin blinds cut out of some old 
 skirts of her own. Then, when her husband refused to buy 
 two little list rugs, she placed her own bedside rug for her 
 little Agathe, talking of this mother of past seven-and-forty as 
 "Poor child !" 
 
 Madame Hochon borrowed two bed-tables from the Bor- 
 niches, and most daringly hired from a second-hand shop two 
 old chests of drawers with brass handles. She possessed two 
 pairs of candlesticks, made of some scarce wood by her father, 
 who had had a passion for turning. From 1770 to 1780 it 
 had been the fashion among rich people to learn a trade ; and 
 Monsieur Lousteau the elder, head commissioner of subsidies, 
 was a turner, as Louis XVI. was a locksmith. These candle- 
 
168 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 sticks were decorated with rings in brier-root, peach, and 
 apricot wood. Madame Hochon risked these precious relics ! 
 
 All these preparations and this great sacrifice added to 
 Monsieur Hoehon's serious mien; he did not yet believe that 
 the Bridaus would come. 
 
 On the very morning of the day made famous by the trick 
 played on Fario, Madame Hochon said to her husband after 
 breakfast : 
 
 "I hope, Hochon, that you will make Madame Bridau, my 
 goddaughter, properly welcome." Then, after assuring her- 
 self that her grandchildren had left the room, she added : "I 
 am mistress of my own fortune; do not compel me to in- 
 demnify Agathe by my will for an unpleasant reception." 
 
 "And do you suppose, madame," said Hochon gently, "that 
 at my age I do not know how to behave with decent civility." 
 
 "You know very well what I mean, old fox ! Be kind to 
 our guests, and remember how truly I love Agathe " 
 
 "Yes, and you truly loved Maxence Gilet, who is going to 
 swallow whole the fortune that ought to be your Agathe's. 
 Ah ! you cherished a serpent in your bosom then ! — After aU, 
 the Eougets' money was fated to belong to some Lousteau or 
 another." 
 
 Having made this allusion to the supposed parentage of 
 Agathe and of Max, Hochon was about to leave the room; 
 but old Madame Hochon, still slender and upright, wearing 
 a mob cap with bows, and her hair powdered, with a shot- 
 silk petticoat, tight sleeves, and high-heeled slippers, set her 
 snuffi-box down on her little table, and said: 
 
 "Eeally, Monsieur Hochon, how can a clever man like you 
 repeat the nonsense which, unluckily, destroyed my poor 
 friend's peace of mind, and cost my poor goddaughter her 
 share of her father's fortune ? Max Gilet is not my brother's 
 son, and I often advised him to save the money he spent on 
 him. And you know as well as I do that Madame Eouget 
 was virtue itself " 
 
 "Well, the daughter is worthy of her mother, for she seems 
 to me a great goose. After losing all her money, she brought 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 169 
 
 Tip her sons so well that one of them is in prison awaiting 
 his trial before the supreme court for a conspiracy a la Berton. 
 As to the other — worse and worse ! he is a painter. — If your 
 proteges remain here till they have extracted that idiot Rouget 
 from the clutches of la Eabouilleuse and Gilet, we shall get 
 through more than one bushel of salt with them." 
 
 "That will do, Monsieur Hochon ; but you might wish them 
 success !" 
 
 Monsieur Hochon took up his hat and his ivory-handled 
 cane, and went out, amazed by this alarming speech, for he 
 had not supposed his wife to be so determined. Madame 
 Hochon, on her part, took her prayer-book to read the order 
 of service, her great age hindering her from going to mass 
 every morning. It was with difficulty that she got to church 
 on Sundays and high festivals. Since receiving Agathe's 
 reply she had added to her regular prayers a special inter- 
 cession, beseeching God to open the eyes of Jean-Jacques 
 Eouget, to bless Agathe, and to grant success to the under- 
 taking to which she had been driven. 
 
 Concealing the fact from her two grandsons, whom she 
 regarded as parpaillots (renegades), she had requested the 
 cure to say masses for nine days, attended by her granddaugh- 
 ter Adolphine Borniche, who put up her grandmother's 
 prayers in the church as her proxy. 
 
 Adolphine, now eighteen, having stitched by her grand- 
 mother's side for seven years, in this chill home of methodical 
 and melancholy regularity, was all the more ready to per- 
 form the neuvaine, because she hoped to inspire some tender 
 feeling in Joseph Bridau, the painter so little understood by 
 Monsieur Hochon, and in whom she took a keen interest, were 
 it only on account of the monstrous ideas her grandfather 
 attributed to the young Paris artist. 
 
 Old people, wise people, the magnates of the town, and 
 fathers of families, all approved of Madame Hochon's con- 
 duct; and their good wishes for her goddaughter and for 
 Agathe's sons were reinforced by the secret contempt they had 
 long felt for the proceedings of Maxence Gilet. So the advent 
 
170 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 of Pere Eouget's sister and nephew gave rise to two factions in 
 Issondun: that of the older and upper citizen class, who 
 could only watch events and hope for the best without helping 
 matters ; and that of the Knights of Idlesse and Max's par- 
 tisans, who were, unfortunately, capable of doing much mis- 
 chief to undermine the Parisians. 
 
 On this day, then, Agathe and Joseph got out of the coach at 
 the oflBce of the Messageries, Place Misere, at three in the 
 afternoon. Though tired, Madame Bridau felt young again at 
 the sight of her native town, where at every step she found 
 some reminiscence and impression of her girlhood. In the 
 state of mind prevailing at Issouduu the arrival of the Pa- 
 risians was known all over the town within ten minutes. 
 
 Madame Hochon appeared at the front gate to receive her 
 goddaughter, and kissed her as if she had been a child of her 
 ovm. After seventy-two years of a life as empty as it was 
 monotonous, with nothing to look back upon but the coffins 
 of her three children, all dying in misfortune, she had culti- 
 vated a sort of artificial motherhood for the girl who, as she 
 expressed it, had for sixteen years lived in her pocket. In the 
 gloom of a provincial life she had cherished this old regard, 
 this child's life, and all its memories, just as if Agathe were 
 still with her, and she took a passionate interest in aU that 
 concerned the Bridaus. 
 
 Agathe was led in triumph into the drawing-room, where 
 worthy Monsieur Hochon stood as cold as a raked-out oven. 
 
 "Here is Monsieur Hochon; how do you think he is look- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Why, exactly as he did when I left him," said Agathe. 
 
 "Ah, it is evident you have come from Paris, you pay com- 
 pliments," said the old man. 
 
 The family were introduced : first, little Baruch Borniche, 
 a taU youth of two-and-twenty ; then little Frangois Hochon, 
 now twenty-four; and lastly, little Adolphine, who blushed, 
 and did not know what to do with her hands, and especially 
 with her eyes, for she did not wish to appear to stare at 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 171 
 
 Joseph Bridau, who was anxiously examined by the two lads 
 and by old Hochon, but from different points of view. The 
 miser was reflecting, "He must have just come out of a hos- 
 pital ; he will eat like a fever-patient." 
 
 The two young men were saying to themselves, "What a 
 brigand ! What a head ! We shall have our hands full !" 
 
 "Here is my son the painter, my good Joseph," said Agathe 
 finally, introducing the artist. 
 
 There was a little sigh in the emphasis on the word "good," 
 which betrayed Agathe's heart; she was thinking of the 
 prisoner at the Luxembourg. 
 
 "He looks ill," cried Madame Hochon; "he is not like 
 you " 
 
 "Ko, madame," said Joseph, with the rough simplicity of 
 an artist, "I am like my father, only uglier !" 
 
 Madame Hochon pressed Agathe's hand, which she was 
 holding, and gave her a look. That grasp, that glance were 
 meant to convey: 
 
 "Ah, my child, I quite understand your preferring that 
 scapegrace Philippe." 
 
 "I never saw your father, my dear boy," replied Madame 
 Hochon aloud ; 'Tjut that you are your mother's son is enough 
 to make me love you. Besides, you have talent, from what the 
 late Madame Descoings used to write to me ; she was the only 
 person to give me any news of you in these latter times." 
 
 "Talent?" said the artist; "no, not yet; but with time 
 and perseverance I may some day win both glory and for- 
 tune." 
 
 "By painting?" said Monsieur Hochon, with deep irony. 
 
 "Come, Adolphine," said Madame Hochon, "go and see 
 about getting the dinner served." 
 
 "Mother," said Joseph, "I will go and carry up our trunks, 
 which have just come." 
 
 "Hochon, will you show Monsieur Bridau the rooms," said 
 the grandmother to Frangois. 
 
 As dinner was not till four, and it was now but half-past 
 three, Barueh went round the town giving news of the Bridaus' 
 
172 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 arrival, describing Agathe's dress, and, above all, Joseph, 
 whose hollow cheeks and sickly, strongly-marked features were 
 like the ideal portrait of a brigand. In every house that 
 day Joseph was the sole subject of conversation. 
 
 "Old Eouget's sister must have met an ape somewhere be- 
 fore her son was born ; he is just like a monkey." — "He has a 
 face like a brigand, and eyes like a basiUsk." — "They say he is 
 extraordinary to behold, quite alarming." — "All Paris artists 
 are the same." — "They are as spiteful as cunning asses, and 
 as vicious as apes." — "It is in the nature of their calling." — 
 "I have just seen Monsieur Beaussier, who says he would not 
 for worlds meet him at night in the woods. He saw him in 
 the diligence." — "He has hollows in his face like a horse, and 
 he waves his arms like a madman." — "That fellow is capable 
 of any crime; it is his fault, perhaps, that his brother, who 
 was a fine handsome man, has gone to the bad. Poor Mad- 
 ame Bridau, she does not look very happy with him. Sup- 
 pose we take advantage of his being here to have our likeness 
 drawn ?" 
 
 The result of these opinions, sown broadcast in the town as 
 if by the winds, was a devouring curiosity. All who had 
 a right to call on the Hochons promised themselves that they 
 would do so that evening, to inspect the Parisians. The ar- 
 rival of these two persons in a stagnant town like Issoudun 
 was as startling as the fall of the Log among the Progs. 
 
 After placing his mother's luggage and his own in the two 
 attic rooms, and looking round them, Joseph studied the 
 silent house, where the stairs, walls, and panels, bare of adorn- 
 ment, shed a chill, and there was not a thing beyond what was 
 strictly necessary. But when, on going downstairs, he found 
 Monsieur Hochon himself cutting a slice of bread for each 
 person, he understood for the first time Moliere's Harpagon. 
 
 "We should have done better at the inn," thought he. 
 
 The dinner confirmed his apprehensions. After a soup, 
 so thin that quantity was evidently preferred to quality, a 
 dish of bouilli was served — fresh-boiled beef — triumphantly 
 wreathed with parsley. The vegetables cooked with it, served 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 173 
 
 in a separate dish, were part of the bill of fare. The meat 
 crowned the table, and was flanked by three other dishes; 
 hard eggs on sorrel opposite the vegetables, and a salad, ready 
 dressed with nut-oil, opposite little cups of custard flavored 
 with burnt oats as a substitute for vanilla — as much like 
 vanilla as chicory is like Mocha. Butter, and radishes on 
 little plates at the opposite ends, black radishes and gherkins, 
 completed the display, which Madame Hochon highly ap- 
 proved. The good old lady nodded at her husband, as a 
 hostess happy to see that, at any rate for the first day, he had 
 done things in style. The old man responded with a look and 
 a shrug, easily interpreted to mean : 
 
 "You see what recklessness you lead me into !" 
 
 As soon as the bouilli had been dissected by Monsieur 
 Hochon into slices as thin as the sole of your slipper, it was 
 removed to make way for three pigeons. The wine was of the 
 vintage of 1811. At a hint from her grandmother, Adolphine 
 had graced each end of the table with a bunch of flowers. 
 
 "Well, make the best of a bad job !" thought the artist, as 
 he looked at the table. And he began to eat like a man who 
 had breakfasted at Vierzon at six in the morning, oS an 
 execrable cup of coffee. 
 
 When Joseph had eaten his bread and asked for some more. 
 Monsieur Hochon rose, slowly felt for a key in the depths of 
 his coat-pocket, opened a cupboard behind him, flourished the 
 stump of a twelve-pound loaf, ceremoniously cut o£E another 
 slice, which he divided in two, put it on a plate, and passed 
 the plate across the table to the young painter, with the 
 silence and composure of an old soldier, who says to him- 
 self at the beginning of a battle, "Well, I may be dead by to- 
 night." 
 
 Joseph took half the slice, and understood that he must 
 never again ask for more bread. No member of the family 
 was surprised at this scene, which to Joseph seemed so pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 The conversation went on. Agathe heard that the house 
 she was born in, her father's house before he had inherited 
 
174 A BACHBLOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 that 6f the Deseoings, had been bought by the Borniches, and 
 she expressed a wish to see it again. 
 
 "The Borniehes will call this evening, no doubt," said her 
 godmother. "All the town will come to inspect you," she 
 added to Joseph, "and they will ask you to their houses." 
 
 For dessert the maid brought in the famous soft cheeses 
 of Touraine and le Berry, made of goat's milk, which so 
 exactly reproduce, in a sort of niello, the veining of the vine- 
 leaves on which they are served, that engraving might very 
 well have been invented in Touraine. On each side of the 
 little cheeses Gritte ceremoniously served some walnuts and 
 some rocky biscuits. 
 
 "Come, Gritte, bring us some fruit," said Madame Hochon. 
 
 "Madame, there is no rotten fruit left," replied Gritte. 
 
 Joseph shouted with laughter, as if he had been in his 
 studio with his own companions, for he understood at once that 
 the precaution of beginning first on damaged fruit had de- 
 generated into a habit. 
 
 "Oh, we can eat it all the same !" said he, with the dash of 
 spirit of a man who feels that he must speak. 
 
 "Pray go for some. Monsieur Hochon," said the old lady. 
 
 Monsieur Hochon, much annoyed by the artist's remark, 
 fetched some small peaches, some pears, and late plums. 
 
 "Adolphine, go and cut some grapes," said Madame Hochon 
 to her granddaughter. 
 
 Joseph looked at the two young men with an expression 
 that seemed to say, "And is it to such a diet as this that you 
 owe your blooming appearance ?" 
 
 Baruch understood this keen glance, and could not help 
 smiling, for his cousin Hochon and he had displayed moderate 
 appetites. The food at home was a matter of indifference to 
 , men who supped three times a week at la Cognette's. And 
 just before dinner, Baruch had had notice that the Grand 
 Master of the Order had summoned a full meeting at mid- 
 night to have a splendid supper, as he required their co-opera- 
 tion. 
 
 This banquet of welcome offered to his guests by old Hochon 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 175 
 
 explains how necessary these midnight festivities were for 
 the maintenance of these two great fellows, who had fine ap- 
 petites, and who never missed one. 
 
 "We will have some liqueurs in the drawing-room," said 
 Madame Hochon, rising, and signing to Joseph to give her 
 liis arm. They went out first, and she was able to say to the 
 painter, "Well, my poor boy, your dinner will not give you an 
 indigestion; but I had great difficulty in procuring it for 
 you! You will find lenten fare here; just enough to eat to 
 keep you alive, and that is all. So just make the best of it." 
 
 The frank simplicity of the old lady, thus pronouncing 
 judgment on her own house, pleased the painter. 
 
 "I shall have lived fifty years with that old man without 
 ever having heard twenty crowns jingle in my purse. Oh, 
 if it were not for the hope of saving your fortune, I would 
 never have invited your mother and you to stay in my 
 prison !" 
 
 "But how is it that you are still alive?" said the painter 
 artlessly, with the light-heartedness that never deserts a 
 French artist. 
 
 "Ah, indeed," said she. "I pray." 
 
 Joseph felt a thrill as he heard these words, which gave the 
 old woman such dignity in his eyes that he drew back two or 
 three steps to look in her face ; he saw it radiant, full of such 
 tender serenity, that he said to her: 
 
 "I will paint your portrait " 
 
 "No, no," said she. "I have hated life on earth too much 
 to wish to remain on it in a picture." 
 
 As she spoke the sad words in a light tone, she took from 
 a cupboard a fiask containing black-currant brandy, a house- 
 hold liqueur prepared by herself, for she had had the recipe 
 from the famous Sisterhood who also created the Issoudim 
 cakes, one of the greatest achievements of Trench confection- 
 ery, which no chef, cook, pastry-cook, or confectioner has ever 
 been able to imitate. Monsieur de Eiviere, the Ambassador to 
 Constantinople, ordered immense numbers every year for 
 Mahmoud's seraglio. Adolphine held a small lacquer tray 
 
176 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 full of little old-fashioned glasses with, an engraved pattern 
 and a gilt rim; as her grandmother filled them, she carried 
 them round. 
 
 "Glasses round. — Father will have some!" cried Agathe 
 gaily, reminded of her young days by this time-honored cere- 
 mony. 
 
 "Hochon will go presently to his club to read the papers; 
 we shall have a little time to ourselves/' said the old lady in a 
 low voice. 
 
 In fact, ten minutes later, the three women and Joseph 
 were left to themselves in the drawing-room. Its floor was 
 never polished, only swept, while the tapestried panels, in oak 
 frames, with deep ogees and mouldings, and all the simple 
 heavy furniture, stood before Madame Bridau exactly as she 
 had left them. The Monarchy, the Eevolution, the Empire, 
 and the Eestoration, respecters of few things, had respected 
 this room, where their splendors and disasters had left not 
 a trace. 
 
 "Ah, godmother, my life has been cruelly storm-tossed in 
 comparison with yours !" exclaimed Madame Bridau, surprised 
 to see even a canary bird, which she had known alive, stuffed 
 and standing on the chimney-shelf between the 'old clock and 
 the old brass branched candlesticks and silver taper stands. 
 
 "My child," replied the old lady, "storms are in the heart. 
 The greater and the more needed is our resignation, the 
 greater must our inmost struggles be. — But we will not talk 
 of me, but of your affairs. You are indeed exactly opposite 
 the foe," she went on, pointing to the windows of old Eouget's 
 house. 
 
 "They are sitting down to dinner," remarked Adolphine. 
 
 The young girl, almost a recluse, was constantly looking 
 out of window, hoping to catch some light shed by chance 
 on the enormities ascribed to Maxence Gilet, to la Eabouil- 
 leuse, and to Jean-Jacques, of which a hint now and again 
 reached her ears when she was sent away while they were 
 discussed. The old lady now told her granddaughter to leave 
 her with Monsieur and Madame Bridau till the first visitor 
 should come. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 177 
 
 "For I Know my Issoudun," said she, looking at the two 
 Parisians ; "we shall have ten or twelve batches of inquisitive 
 callers this evening." 
 
 Madame Hochon had hardly had time to give them the 
 events and particulars concerning the extraordinary influence 
 exerted over Jean-Jacques Eouget by la EabouiUeuse and 
 Maxence Gilet — not with the synthetic brevity with which 
 they have here been narrated, but with the addition of a thou- 
 sand comments, descriptions, and hypotheses lent to them by 
 good and evil tongues in the town — ^when Adolphine an- 
 nounced the approach of the Borniches, the Beaussiers, the 
 Lousteau-Prangins, the Fichets, the Goddet-Heraus, fourteen 
 persons in all, who loomed in the distance. 
 
 "So, you see, my dear child," said the old lady in conclusion, 
 "that it will be no small matter to drag this fortune out of the 
 wolf's mouth " 
 
 "It seems to me so difficult, with such a scoundrel as you 
 have described, and a slut like that young witch, that it must 
 be impossible," said Joseph. "We should have to remain at 
 Issoudun a year at least to combat their influence and undo 
 their power over my uncle. — No fortune is worth so much 
 vexation, to say nothing of having to stoop to a thousand 
 dishonorable tricks. My mother has but a fortnight's leave 
 of absence ; her appointment is a certainty, and she must not 
 risk losing it. In the month of October I have some im- 
 portant work to do which Schinner has secured for me in a 
 nobleman's house. And to me, madame, you see, fortune lies 
 in my paint-brushes." 
 
 This speech was received with profound amazement. Mad- 
 ame Hochon, though relatively superior to the place she lived 
 in, did not believe in painting. She looked at her goddaugh- 
 ter, and again grasped her hand. 
 
 "This Maxence is a second edition of Philippe," said Joseph 
 in his mother's ear; "but with more policy, more style than 
 Philippe has." — "Well, madame," he added aloud, "we shall 
 not long put Monsieur Hochon out of his way by staying 
 here." 
 
 12 
 
178 A BAOHBLOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Oh, you are young; you know nothing of the world/' said 
 the old lady. "In a fortnight, with a little political ma- 
 noeuvring, you may do something. Listen to my advice, and 
 act as I may direct you." 
 
 "Oh, very gladly !" cried Joseph. "I am conscious of in- 
 effable incapacity in domestic tactics ; and I am sure I do not 
 know what Desroches himself would advise us to do if, for 
 instance, my uncle refuses to see us to-morrow." 
 
 Mesdames Borniche, Goddet-Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau- 
 Prangin, and Fichet, graced by their husbands, now came in. 
 
 After the usual greetings, and when the fourteen persons 
 had found seats, Madame Hochon could not avoid introduc- 
 ing to them her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph Bridau. 
 Joseph remained on a sofa, and gave himself up to a covert 
 study of the sixty faces which from half-past five till nine 
 came to sit to him gratis, as he said to his mother. And 
 Joseph's attitude throughout this evening in regard to the 
 patricians of Issoudun did nothing to alter the views of the 
 little town in regaxd to him. Every one left chilled by his 
 ironical gaze, uncomfortable under his smile, or alarmed by 
 his face, sinister, no doubt, to people who could not discern 
 the eccentricity of genius. 
 
 At ten o'clock, when everybody went to bed, the old lady 
 detained her goddaughter in her room till midnight. Then, 
 knowing that they were alone, the two women, while telling 
 each other the troubles of their lives, made an exchange of 
 suffering. As she measured the vastness of the solitude in 
 which all the powers of a beautiful soul had been spent un- 
 recognized, as she heard the last utterances of an intelligence 
 that had missed its opportunities, as she learned the sorrows 
 of a heart so essentially generous and charitable, but whose 
 generosity and charity had never had full play, Agathe no 
 longer regarded herself as the more unfortunate of the two, as 
 she perceived how much mitigation and minor happiness her 
 Paris life had afforded in the midst of the discipline ap- 
 pointed her by God. 
 
 "You who are so pious, godmother, tell me my faults," said 
 she. "Tell me what it is that God is punishing me for." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 179 
 
 'Tie prepares us, my child," replied the old lady as mid- 
 night struck. 
 
 At midnight the Knights of Idlesse were making their 
 way, one by one, like shades, to meet under the trees of the 
 Boulevard Baron, and walked to and fro, talking in low 
 whispers. 
 
 "What is up ?" was the first question of each newcomer. 
 
 "I fancy," said Frangois, "that all Max intends is to give 
 us a feed." 
 
 "No. Matters are looking awkward for him and la Ka- 
 bouilleuse. He has concocted some plot against these Pa- 
 risians no doubt " 
 
 "It would be good fun to pack them ofE again." 
 
 "My grandfather," said Barueh, "is in a fright already at 
 having two more mouths to fill, and he would jump at any 
 excuse " 
 
 "Well, Knights !" cried Max in a low voice as he came up, 
 "why are you gazing at the stars ? They will not distil kirsch 
 on our heads. To la Cognette's ! To la Cognette's !" 
 
 "To la Cognette's !" 
 
 The shout as of one voice produced a fearful din, that swept 
 across the little town like the hue of soldiers rushing on an 
 assault ; then utter silence fell. Next morning more than one 
 person would say to his neighbor : "Did you hear that fearful 
 yell last night at about one o'clock? I thought there was a 
 fire somewhere." 
 
 A supper worthy of la Cognette cheered the eyes of the two- 
 and-twenty guests, for the Order was present in all its num- 
 bers. At two in the morning, when they were beginning to 
 siroter, a word of their own peculiar slang, fairly descriptive 
 of the art of drinking in sips and slowly tasting the vrine, 
 Max addressed the meeting : — 
 
 "My dear boys, this morning, in consequence of the never- 
 to-be forgotten trick we played with Fario's cart, your Grand 
 Master was so grossly insulted on a point of honor by that base 
 corn-dealer, and a Spaniard to boot — Ah, those hulks ! — that 
 
180 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 I am determined to let that miscreant feel the whole weight 
 of my vengeance, within the strict limits of our sports. After 
 considering the matter all day, I have hit on a plan for playing 
 him a capital trick, a trick that is enough to drive him mad. 
 While avenging the Order attacked in my person, we may feed 
 certain animals worshiped by the Egyptians, little beasts which 
 are, after all, God's creatures though men persecute them 
 unjustly. Good comes of evil, and evil of good; such is the 
 divine law ! I require you each and all, under pain of your 
 humble servant and Grand Master's displeasure, to procure, 
 as secretly as possible, twenty rats, or if possible, lady rats 
 expecting families by God's grace. You must collect your 
 contingent within three days. If you can get more, the 
 surplus will be acceptable. Keep these interesting rodents 
 without food, for it is essential that the dear little beasts 
 should be ravenously hungry. Observe, I include as rats, 
 mice and field-mice. If we multiply twenty by twenty- 
 two, we shall have more than four hundred accomplices, 
 who, when turned out in the old church of the Ca- 
 puchins, where Pario has stored all the seed-corn he has just 
 laid in, will consume a certain quantity of it. But we must 
 look sharp ! — Fario is to deliver a large parcel of seeds in a 
 week; now what I want is that my Spanish friend, who is 
 traveling round for orders, should find a fearful waste. 
 
 "Gentlemen, the merit of this invention is not mine," he 
 went on, noting signs of general approbation. " 'Eender unto 
 Csesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things 
 that are God's.' This is an imitation of Samson's foxes in the 
 Bible. But Samson was an incendiary, and consequently 
 not a philanthropist; while we, like the Brahmins, are the 
 protectors of a persecuted race. Mademoiselle Flore Brazier 
 has already set all her mouse-traps, and Kouski, my right 
 hand, is hunting field-mice — I have spoken." 
 
 "I know," said Goddet junior, "where to get an animal as 
 good as forty rats single-handed." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "A squirrel." 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 181 
 
 "And I can contribute a small monkey who will eat com 
 till he bursts," said a novice. 
 
 "No good !" said Max. "It will be known where the beasts 
 come from." 
 
 "In the course of the night," said young Beaussier, "we 
 might bring in one pigeon from the pigeon-house of each farm 
 in the neighborhood, by putting it through a hole made in the 
 roof, and there soon would be thousands of pigeons." 
 
 "Well, then, for a week Fario's corn-store is the order of. 
 the night," said Gilet, smiling at the tall youth Beaussier 
 junior. "You know that they are astir early at Saint-Pa- 
 terne. Mind no one is to go there without having put the 
 soles of his list-shoes on hind part before. Our good knight 
 Beaussier, the inventor of the pigeon trick, takes the command. 
 For my part, I will take care to leave my mark on the grain. 
 I leave it to you to be quarter-masters general to the forces 
 of rats. If the shop-boy sleeps in the old church, his com- 
 panions must make him drunk; and do it cleverly, so as to 
 get him far away from the banquet to be provided for the 
 rodents." 
 
 "And you say nothing about the Parisians ?" asked Goddet. 
 
 "Oh!" said Max, "they must be studied. At the same 
 time, I will give my fine fowling-piece, that came to me from 
 the Emperor, a first-class article from the Versailles factory — 
 it is worth two thousand francs — ^to any one who will hit upon 
 a plan for playing these Parisians some trick to get them 
 into such bad odor with Monsieur and Madame Hochon that 
 the old folks should pack them off, or that they should go 
 of their own accord; without causing too much annoyance, 
 however, to the ancestors of my good friends Frangois and 
 Baruch." 
 
 "All right, I will think it over," said young Goddet, who was 
 passionately addicted to shooting. 
 
 "And if the inventor of the ploy does not want the gun, 
 he may have my horse," added Maxence. 
 
 Thenceforth twenty brains were vainly racked to concoct 
 some plot against Agathe and her son, in conformity with this 
 
182 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 programme. But the devil alone, or some chance, could suc- 
 ceed; the conditions of the ease made it so difficult. 
 
 Next morning Agathe and Joseph came downstairs a min- 
 ute before the second breakfast at ten o'clock. The meal 
 called the first breakfast consisted of a cup of milk and a slice 
 of bread and butter, eaten in bed, or on getting up. 
 
 While waiting for Madame Hochon, who, in spite of old 
 age, carefully went through all the ceremonies employed in 
 their toilet by the duchesses of Louis XV. 's reign, Joseph 
 saw, on the threshold of the house opposite, Jean-Jacques 
 Eouget standing squarely in the doorway. He, naturally, 
 pointed him out to his mother, who could not recognize her 
 brother, so little was he like what he had been when they 
 parted. 
 
 "There is your brother," said Adolphine, who had given her 
 grandmother her arm. 
 
 "What an idiot !" cried Joseph. 
 
 Agathe clasped her hands and looked up to Heaven. 
 
 "What have they brought him to ? Good Heavens ! is that 
 a man of fifty-seven ?" 
 
 She wished to look at him attentively, and then saw Flore 
 Brazier come up behind him, her hair dressed without a cap, 
 and displaying, through the gauze of a kerchief trimmed 
 with lace, snowy shoulders and a dazzling bosom; she was 
 dressed as elaborately as a rich courtesan, wearing a tightly- 
 fitting gown of grenadine — a silk stufl! then very fashionable 
 — with gigot sleeves, and magnificent bracelets on her wrists. 
 A gold chain meandered over the bodice of la Eabouilleuse, 
 who had brought Jean-Jacques his black silk cap that he 
 might not catch cold — it was evidently a got-up scene. 
 
 "What a lovely woman !" cried Joseph. "Of a rare kind, 
 too ! Made to be painted, as we say ! What flesh-tints, what 
 splendid coloring! What a skin, what curves, and what 
 shoulders ! She is a magnificent Caryatid ! And a perfect 
 model for a Titian's Venus !" 
 
 To Adolphine and Madame Hochon this might have been 
 Greek; but Agathe, behind her son, made a sign to them as 
 much as to say that she was accustomed to this jargon. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 183 
 
 "You think a woman lovely who is robbing you of a for- 
 tune !" exclaimed Madame Hochon. 
 
 "That does not prevent her being a splendid model! 
 Exactly full enough, without the hips or bust having become 
 coarse " 
 
 "My dear, you are not in your studio," said Agathe. 
 "Adolphine is here " 
 
 "To be sure, I beg pardon; but, really, all the way 
 from Paris along the road I saw none but apes " 
 
 "But my dear godmother," said Agathe, "how can I see 
 my brother ? For if that creature is with him " 
 
 "Pooh I" said Joseph. "I will go to see him. For, indeed, 
 I don't think him quite such an idiot if he has wit enough 
 to gladden his eyes with a Venus worthy of Titian." 
 
 "li he were not an idiot," said Monsieur Hochon, coming 
 in, "he would have married comfortably, have had a family, 
 and you would have had no chance at all of his fortune. 
 Some good comes out of evil." 
 
 "That is a good idea of your son's ; he can go first to call 
 on his uncle," said Madame Hochon. "He will give him to 
 understand that if you go he must receive you alone." 
 
 "And so affront Mademoiselle Brazier?" said Monsieur 
 Hochon. "No, no, madame. Put up with this grievance. If 
 you do not get the fortune, try to secure a legacy." 
 
 The Hochons were no match for Maxence Gilet. In the 
 middle of breakfast the Pole arrived with a note from his 
 master. Monsieur Eouget, addressed to his sister, Madame 
 Bridau. 
 
 Here is the letter which Madame Hochon made her hus- 
 band read : — 
 
 "My deae Sistek, — 
 
 "I hear through strangers of your arrival at Issoudun. I 
 can guess the reason for your preferring Monsieur and Mad- 
 ame Hochon's house to mine ; but if you come to see me, you 
 shall be received here as you ought to be. I should be the 
 first to call on you but that my health compels me at present 
 
184 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 to keep the house. I offer you my affectionate respects. I 
 should be delighted to meet your son, whom I shall hope to 
 see at dinner with me to-day, for young men are less precise 
 than women as to the company they meet. He will give me 
 great pleasure by coming accompanied by Messieurs Baruch 
 Borniche and Frangois Hochon. 
 
 "Your affectionate brother, 
 
 "J.-J. KOUGBT." 
 
 "Say that we are at breakfast, that Madame Bridau will 
 send an answer presently, and the gentlemen accept the in- 
 vitation," said Monsieur Hochon to the maid. And the old 
 man laid his finger on his lip to impress silence on all the 
 party. 
 
 When the house-door was shut. Monsieur Hochon, having 
 no suspicion of the alliance between his grandsons and Max- 
 ence, shot one of his keenest glances at his wife and Agathe. 
 
 "He no more wrote that," said he, "than I am able to pay 
 down twenty-five louis. — The soldier is our correspondent." 
 
 "What does it all mean?" said Madame Hochon. "Kever 
 mind, we will answer it. You, monsieur," she added, turn- 
 ing to the painter, "will dine there, I hope ; but if " 
 
 The old lady stopped short at a look from her husband. 
 Seeing the warmth of his wife's affection for Agathe, old 
 Hochon feared lest she should leave her goddaughter some 
 legacy in the event of her losing all the Eouget property. 
 Though he was fifteen years the elder, the miser hoped to 
 survive her, and to see himself one day master of everything. 
 This hope was his ruling idea. So Madame Hochon had 
 rightly guessed that the way to extract some concessions from 
 her husband was to threaten that she would make a will. 
 
 So Monsieur Hochon sided with his guests. The Eouget for- 
 tune, which hung in the balance, was in fact enormous ; and 
 his sense of social justice made him wish to see it in the hands 
 of the natural heirs rather than grabbed by disreputable out- 
 siders. Again, the sooner the business was settled, the sooner 
 would he be rid of his visitors. Since the struggle, which 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 185 
 
 till now had been only a scheme of his wife's, had actually, 
 begun between the rightful heirs and the unrighteous 
 schemers, Monsieur Hoehon's mind had waked up from the 
 sleep induced by provincial life. Madame Hochon was quite 
 agreeably surprised when, that very morning, she understood, 
 from some kindly expression of old Hoehon's with regard 
 to her goddaughter, that this competent and wily auxiliary 
 was on the side of the Bridaus. 
 
 By noon the combined talents of Monsieur and Madame 
 Hochon, of Agathe and Joseph — a good deal surprised to 
 find the two old people so careful in their choice of words — 
 had brought to birth the following reply for the especial bene- 
 fit of Plore and Maxence : — 
 
 "Mt dear Beothes, — 
 
 "If 1 have waited thirty years without revisiting this town, 
 or keeping up any intercourse with any one in it, not even with 
 you, the fault lies not alone with the strange and false ideas my 
 father had formed against me, but partly with the misfortunes 
 and with the happiness of my life in Paris; for, though God 
 made me a happy wife. He has sorely stricken me as a mother. 
 You cannot but know that my son, your nephew Philippe, 
 lies under a capital charge of treason in consequence of his 
 devotion to the Emperor. Hence, you will not be surprised 
 to hear that a widow, compelled to earn her living by accept- 
 ing a humble employment in a lottery office, should have come 
 to seek: consolation and substantial help from those who have 
 known her from her birth. 
 
 "The profession taken up by the son who is with me is 
 one of those which demand great talent, great sacrifices, and 
 long study before leading to any success. Glory precedes 
 fortune in this career. Is not this as much as to say that 
 even if Joseph makes his name famous, he will still be poor ? 
 
 "I, your sister, my dear Jean- Jacques, would have endured 
 in silence the effects of our father's injustice, but forgive me 
 as a mother for reminding you that you have two nephews — 
 one who served on the Emperor's staff at the battle of Mon- 
 
186 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 tereau, and fought with the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, and 
 who is now in prison; the other who, from the age of thirteen, 
 has been led by a vocation into a difficult though splendid 
 career. 
 
 "So I thank you, my dear brother, with heartfelt warmth, 
 for your letter, both on my own account and on Joseph's ; he 
 will certainly wait on you at your invitation. Ill health ex- 
 cuses everything, my dear Jean- Jacques ; I will see you in your 
 own house. A sister is always at home in her brother's house, 
 whatever life he may choose to lead. 
 
 "Accept my affectionate regards, 
 
 "Agathe Kouqet." 
 
 "There, the battle has begun. When you go there," said 
 Monsieur Hochon, "you can speak plainly to him about his 
 nephews." 
 
 The letter was delivered by Gritte, who returned in ten 
 minutes to report to her superiors all she had been able to 
 see or hear, as is the custom in the provinces. 
 
 "Madame," said she, "since last evening, all that part of the 
 house that madame had left " 
 
 "Madame — who ?" asked old Hochon. 
 
 "Oh, they call la Eabouilleuse madame over there," replied 
 Gritte. 
 
 "She had left the drawing-room and everything that was 
 about Monsieur Eouget in a dreadful state; but since yester- 
 day the house is all to rights again, as it was before Monsieur 
 Maxence came there. You could see yourself in everything. 
 Vedie told me that Kouski was out on horseback by six this 
 morning; he came in about nine, bringing in provisions. 
 Indeed, there is to be the best of dinners, a dinner fit for the 
 Archbishop of Bourges. Little pans are standing in big pans, 
 and everything in order in the kitchen. 'I mean to treat my 
 nephew handsomely,' the old fellow said, and made them tell 
 him all they were doing. The Eougets were highly flattered 
 by the letter, it would seem; madame came out to tell me so. 
 Oh, she is dressed! Such a dress! I never saw anything 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 187 
 
 handsomer! Madame has diamonds in her ears — two dia- 
 monds worth a thousand crowns apiece, Vedie told me — and 
 lace ! and rings on her fingers, and bracelets good enough for 
 a shrine, and a silk gown fit for an altar-front ! And then 
 says she to me : 'Monsieur is delighted to think his sister is 
 so ready and willing, and I hope she will allow us to entertain 
 her as she deserves. And we look forward to her good opin- 
 ion of us when she hears how welcome we make her son. And 
 monsieur is most impatient to see his nephew.' — Madame 
 had little black satin shoes and stockings ! Oh, really won- 
 derful. Like flowers on the silk, and holes like lace, and 
 you see the pink flesh through. In short, she is up to the 
 nines! With such a dear little apron in front of her, that 
 Vedie told me that apron alone cost two years of our 
 wages " 
 
 "Come, come, we must get ourselves up !" said the artist, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Hochon, and what are you thinking 
 about ?" said the old lady, when Gritte had left the room. 
 
 Madame Hochon pointed to her husband sitting with his 
 head in his hands, and his elbows on the arms of his chair, 
 lost in thought. 
 
 "You have a Maitre Bonin to deal with," said the old man. 
 "You, young man, with your notions, are no match in a 
 struggle with a scoundrel of such skill as Maxence. What- 
 ever I may say, you are sure to make some blunder; but, at 
 any rate, tell me this evening all you see, hear, and do. Go — 
 and God be with you ! Try to have a few minutes alone with 
 your uncle. If, in spite of all you can do, you fail in that, 
 it will throw some light on their scheme ; but if you are alone 
 with him for one instant — alone, without being overheard, 
 mind you! — You must speak very plainly to him as to his 
 position — which is not a becoming one — and plead your 
 mother's cause." 
 
 At four o'clock Joseph crossed the straits which divided the 
 Hochons' house from the Eougets', the avenue of sickly lime- 
 trees, two hundred feet long, and as wide as the Grande 
 
188 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Narette. When the nephew appeared, Kouski, in freshly 
 blacked boots, black trousers, white waistcoat, and black coat, 
 led the way to announce him. 
 
 The table was ready laid in the sitting-room, and Joseph, 
 who easily identified his uncle, went straight up to him and 
 embraced him, bowing to Flore and Maxence. 
 
 "We have never met since I came into the world, my dear 
 imcle," said the painter gaily. "But better late than never." 
 
 "You are very welcome, my dear boy," said the old man, 
 looking at his nephew with a bewildered air. 
 
 "Madame," said Joseph to Flore with an artist's enthusi- 
 asm, "this morning I was envying my uncle the pleasure he 
 enjoys of admiring you every day." 
 
 "Is not she beautiful?" said the old man, his dull eyes 
 almost sparkling. 
 
 "Beautiful enough to be a painter's model." 
 
 "Nephew," said the old man, his elbow being nudged by 
 Flore, "this is Monsieur Maxence Gilet, a man who served 
 the Emperor, like your brother, in the Imperial Guard." 
 
 Joseph rose and bowed. 
 
 "Your brother, I think, was a dragoon, and I was only a 
 mud-crusher," said Maxence. 
 
 "On horseback or on foot," observed Flore, "you risked 
 your skin all the same." 
 
 Joseph studied Max as narrowly as Max studied Joseph. 
 Max was dressed like the young men of fashion of the day, 
 for he had his clothes from Paris. A pair of sky-blue cloth 
 trousers, very fully pleated, made the best of his feet by show- 
 ing only the tips of his boots and his spurs. His waist was 
 firmly held by a white waistcoat with fancy gold buttons, laced 
 behind to serve as a belt; this waistcoat, buttoning to the 
 throat, set ofE his broad chest, and his black satin stock obliged 
 him to hold his head up like a soldier. His black coat was 
 extremely well cut. A handsome gold chain hung from his 
 waistcoat pocket, where a flat watch scarcely showed. He was 
 playing with one of the patent watch-keys just invented by 
 Breguet. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 189 
 
 "He is a very good-looking fellow !" said Joseph to himself, 
 admiring as an artist the face full of life, the appearance of 
 strength, and the keen gray eyes inherited by Max from his 
 gentleman father. "My uncle must be a deadly old bore, 
 and that handsome girl has sought compensation. It is a 
 case of three in a boat, that is very clear." 
 
 At this moment Barueh and Frangois came in. 
 
 "You have not yet seen the Tower of Issoudun ?" said Flore 
 to Joseph. 'TVell, if you like to take a little walk till dinner 
 is ready, which will not be for an hour yet, we will show you 
 the great curiosity of the town " 
 
 "With pleasure," said the artist, unable to discern the 
 smallest objection. 
 
 While More was putting on her bonnet, her gloves, and her 
 cashmere shawl, Joseph suddenly caught sight of the pictures, 
 and started to his feet as if some enchanter had touched him 
 with his wand. 
 
 "Ah, ha ! so you have pictures, uncle ?" said he, looking at 
 the one that had struck him. 
 
 "Yes," said the old fellow, "they came to me from the Des- 
 coings, who, during the Kevolution, bought up some of the 
 pickings of the convents and churches of le Berry." 
 
 But Joseph was not listening. He went from picture to 
 picture. 
 
 "Magnificent!" he exclaimed. "Why, what a fine thing! 
 That man did not spoil canvas. Bless me, why, better and 
 better; as we see them at Nicolet's " 
 
 "There are seven or eight more, very large ones, in the loft, 
 that were kept for the sake of the frames," said Gilet. 
 
 'TJet me see them," cried the artist, and Maxence took him 
 to the loft. 
 
 Joseph came down in raptures. Max said a word in la 
 Eabouilleuse's ear, and she led the old man to the window; 
 Joseph caught these words spoken in an undertone, but still 
 so that he could hear them : 
 
 "Your nephew is a painter ; you can do nothing with these 
 pictures. Be good-natured, and give them to him." 
 
190 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "It would seem/' said Eouget, leaning on Flore's arm, and 
 coming to the spot where his nephew stood in ecstasies before 
 an Albano, — "it would seem that you are a painter " 
 
 "Only a smudger as yet/' said Joseph. 
 
 "Whatever is that ?" said Flore. 
 
 "A beginner/' said Joseph. 
 
 "Well/' said Jean-Jacques, "if these pictures can be of any 
 use to you in your business, I will give them to you. . . . 
 But without the frames. The frames are gilt, and then they 
 are quaint; I will put " 
 
 "Why, of course, uncle," cried Joseph, enchanted, "you 
 will put copies into them, which I wiU send you, and which 
 shall be of the same size." 
 
 "But that will take time, and you will want canvas and 
 paints," said Flore. "It will cost you money. Come, Pere 
 Eouget, suppose you offer your nephew a hundred francs for 
 each picture; there are twenty-seven here, and I think there 
 are eleven more in the loft, which are enormous, and ought to 
 cost double — say four thousand francs for the lot. Yes, your 
 uncle may very well spend four thousand francs on the copies, 
 since he is to keep the frames. You will have to get frames 
 too, and they say the frames cost more than the pict- 
 ures; there is gold on them. ... I say, monsieur," 
 Flore went on, shaking the old man's arm, "listen, that is not 
 dear : your nephew will charge you four thousand francs for 
 quite new pictures in the place of your old ones. ... It 
 is a civil way of making him a present of the money," said she 
 in his ear. "He does not strike me as being very flush " 
 
 "Very well, nephew, I will pay you four thousand francs 
 for the copies " 
 
 "JSTo, no/' said Joseph honestly. "Four thousand francs 
 and the pictures is too much; for the pictures, you see, are of 
 value." 
 
 "Why, accept it, booby," said Flore, "since he is your 
 uncle . . ." 
 
 "Very well, I accept it," said Joseph, quite bewildered, 
 for he had recognized one picture as by Perugino. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 191 
 
 So the artist looked quite gleeful as he went out, giving 
 his arm to la Kabouilleuse, which perfectly suited Max's pur- 
 pose. Neither Flore, nor Eouget, nor Max, nor any one at 
 Issoudun had any idea of the value of the pictures, and the 
 wily Max believed that he had purchased very cheaply Flore's 
 triumph as she marched proudly arm in arm with her master's 
 nephew, on the best possible terms with him, in the eyes of the 
 astonished townsfolk. People came to their doors to see the 
 victory of la Eabouilleuse over the family. This astounding 
 fact made the deep sensation on which Max had built his 
 hopes. So when the uncle and nephew went in at about five, 
 the talk in every household was of the perfect alliance be- 
 tween Flore and Max and Pere Eouget's nephew. And the 
 story of the gift of the pictures and the four thousand francs 
 was all over the town already. 
 
 The dinner, to which Lousteau, one of the judges, and the 
 Mayor of Issoudun, was invited, was really splendid; it was 
 one of the country meals which last five hours. The finest 
 wines gave spirit to the conversation. Over the dessert, at 
 nine o'clock, the painter, seated between Flore and Max, op- 
 posite his uncle, was almost hail-fellow with the officer, whom 
 he thought the best of good souls. At eleven o'clock Joseph 
 went home, a little screwed. As to old Eouget, Kouski carried 
 him to bed dead drunk; he had eaten like a traveling actor, and 
 drunk like the sands of the desert. 
 
 "Well, now," said Max, left alone with Flore, "is not this 
 better than sulking with them? The Bridaus are well re- 
 ceived; they will get some little presents, and, loaded with 
 favors, they can only sing our praises; they will go quietly 
 away, and leave us quietly where we are. To-morrow morn- 
 ing Kouski and I between us will take out all those pictures, 
 and send them over for the painter to see them when he wakes ; 
 we will put the frames in the loft, and have the room repapered 
 with one of those varnished papers, with scenes on it from 
 Telemaque, such as I saw at Monsieur Mouilleron's." 
 
 "Whj, that will be ever so much prettier !" cried Flore. 
 
192 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Joseph did not wake till noon next day. Prom his bed he 
 saw the pictures leaning one above another, having been 
 brought in without his hearing anything. While he was ex- 
 amining them afresh, and recognizing them as masterpieces, 
 studying the handling of each master, or finding their sig- 
 natures, his mother went to thank her brother and to see him, 
 urged to do so by old Hochon, who, knowing all the blunders 
 committed by Joseph the evening before, despaired of the 
 Bridaus' prospects. 
 
 "You have to deal with two very sharp customers. In all 
 my life I never met with so sly a fox as that soldier. War is the 
 making of these youths, it would seem. Joseph walked into 
 the trap. He appeared arm in arm with la Rabouilleuse. 
 They have shut his mouth, no doubt, with wine, some rubbishy 
 pictures, and four thousand francs. Your artist has not cost 
 Maxence dear." 
 
 The cunning old man had laid down a line of conduct for 
 his wife's goddaughter, instructing her to seem to agree with 
 Maxence and cajole Flore, so as to become to some extent 
 familiar with her, and obtain a few minutes' talk alone with 
 her brother. Madame Bridau was very well received by Jean- 
 Jacques, tutored by Flore. The old man was in bed, ill from 
 the excesses of the previous evening. As Agathe could not 
 attack him on serious questions at the very first moment. Max 
 had thought it correct and handsome to leave the brother and 
 sister to themselves. He had calculated judiciously. Poor 
 Agathe found her brother so ill that she would not deprive 
 him of Mademoiselle Brazier's attentions. 
 
 "Besides," she said to the old man, "I should wish to know 
 the person to whom I am indebted for my brother's happi- 
 ness." 
 
 These words gave the poor fellow evident pleasure ; he rang 
 and sent for Madame Brazier. Flore, as may be supposed, 
 was not far off. The female antagonists exchanged salutes. 
 La Rabouilleuse displayed the most obsequious care, the 
 tenderest attentions; she thought monsieur's head was too 
 low, and rearranged the pillows; she was like a wife of yester- 
 day. And the old man overflowed with emotion. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 193 
 
 "We owe you much gratitude, mademoiselle," said Agathe, 
 "for all the marks of attachment you have so long given to 
 my brother, and for the care with which you provide for his 
 happiness." 
 
 "It is very true, my dear Agathe," said the old man, "she 
 made me first know happiness; and she is a woman full of 
 admirable qualities." 
 
 "And so, brother, you cannot reward her too highly; you 
 ought to have made her your wife. Yes ! I am too religious 
 a woman not to wish that I might see you obey the precepts 
 of religion. You would both be the happier if you were not 
 at war with law and morality. I came here, my dear brother, 
 to appeal for help in very great trouble; but do not imagine 
 that we intended to make the slightest remarks on the way in 
 which you may dispose of your fortune." 
 
 "Madame," said Flore, "we know that your father was un- 
 just to you. Your brother can tell you," she added, staring 
 hard at her victim, "that the only quarrels we have ever had, 
 he and I, have been about you. I tell monsieur that he owes 
 you part of the fortune of which you were robbed by my poor 
 benefactor — for he was miy benefactor, your father was," and 
 she put on a tearful voice, "and I shall never forget him — ^but 
 your brother, madame, has listened to reason " 
 
 "Yes," said old Eouget, "when I make my will, you will not 
 be forgotten " 
 
 "We will not talk of that, brother ; you do not know yet what 
 my character is " 
 
 From these beginnings the upshot of this first visit may be 
 imagined. Eouget invited his sister to dinner for the next 
 day but one. 
 
 During these three days the Knights of Idlesse caught an 
 enormous number of rats, mice, and field-mice, which were 
 turned out starving one fine night among the seed-corn, to 
 the number of four hundred and thirty-six, among them 
 many mothers with young. Not satisfied with having quar- 
 tered these pensioners on Fario, the Knights made some holes 
 in the roof of the old chapel, and put in ten pigeons brought 
 13 
 
194 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 from ten different farmsteads. The creatures held high 
 festival, with all the greater freedom because Pario's boy was 
 led away by another young rascal, with whom he drank from 
 morning till night, taking no care whatever of his master's 
 merchandise. 
 
 Madame Bridau, in opposition to old Hochon's opinion, 
 believed that her brother had not yet made his will ; she pur- 
 posed asking him what his intentions were with regard to 
 Mademoiselle Brazier, on the first opportunity she might find 
 of taking a walk with him alone; for Max and Flore con- 
 stantly beguiled her with this hope, which was always deceived. 
 
 Though the Knights of the Order all tried to hit on a 
 scheme for putting the two Parisians to flight, they devised 
 nothing but impossible follies. 
 
 Hence at the end of a week, half of the time the Bridaus 
 were to spend in Issoudun, they were no further forward than 
 on the first day. 
 
 "Your lawyer does not know what a country town is," said 
 old Hochon to Madame Bridau. "What you came here to do 
 cannot be done in fourteen days, nor in fourteen months. You 
 would have to be constantly with your brother, and instil into 
 him some ideas of religion. You can only undermine the 
 fortress guarded by Flore and Maxence by sapping it through 
 a priest. That is my opinion, and it is high time you should 
 act on it." 
 
 "You have strange ideas of the priesthood," said Madame 
 Hochon to her husband. 
 
 "Oh!" cried the old man. "There you are, you godly 
 people I" 
 
 "God will not bless any endeavor that is based on sacrilege," 
 said Madame Bridau. "To make use of religion for such 
 a Oh ! We should be worse than Flore !" 
 
 This conversation took place at breakfast, and Frangois 
 and Baruch both listened with open ears. 
 
 "Sacrilege !" cried old Hochon. "But if some good Abbe, 
 as clever as some I have known, understood the predicament 
 in which you stand, he would not regard it as sacrilege to lead 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 195 
 
 home to God your brother's erring soul, to bring him to true 
 repentance for his sins, to persuade him to send away the 
 woman who is the cause of the scandal — providing for her, 
 of course — to point out to him that his conscience would rest 
 in peace if he only left a few thousand francs a year to the 
 Archbishop's little Seminary, and the remainder of his for- 
 tune to his legitimate heirs." 
 
 The passive obedience exacted by the old miser from his 
 children, and handed down to his grandchildren, who had in- 
 deed been left to his guardianship, and for whom he was amass- 
 ing a large fortune — doing by them, he was wont to say, as he 
 would do by himself — did not allow of the faintest sign of 
 astonishment or disapproval on the part of Baruch and 
 Frangois ; but they exchanged glances full of meaning, telling 
 each other how fatal this idea would be to Max's interests. 
 
 "The truth is, madame," said Baruch, "if you wish to in- 
 herit your brother's property, the only real way is this — ^you 
 must remain at Issoudun as long as is necessary to employ 
 him " 
 
 "Mother," Joseph put in, "you will do well to write all this 
 to Desroches. For my part, I look for nothing more from my 
 uncle than what he has so kindly given me." 
 
 After assuring himself of the great value of the thirty-nine 
 pictures, Joseph had carefully unmounted the canvases, had 
 pasted paper over them, laid them one over another ilat in a 
 huge case, and addressed it by carrier to Desroches, to whom 
 he meant to send a letter of advice. This precious load had 
 been sent off the day before. 
 
 "You are cheaply paid off," said Monsieur Hochon. 
 
 "But I shall have no difficulty in getting a hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs for the pictures," said Joseph. 
 
 "A painter's notion !" said Monsieur Hochon, looking dubi- 
 ously at Joseph. 
 
 "Listen," said Joseph, turning to his mother, "I am going 
 to write to Desroches and explain the state of affairs here. If 
 he advises you to stay, you shall stay. As to your place in the 
 office, we can always find something dse as good " 
 
196 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "My dear boy/' said Madame Hoehon, as they rose from 
 table, "I do not know what your uncle's pictures may be, but 
 they ought to be good, judging by the places they came from. 
 If they are worth even forty thousand francs, a thousand 
 francs apiece, tell nobody. Though my grandchildren are 
 discreet and well brought up, they might, without meaning 
 any mischief, talk about this supposed treasure-trove; all Is- 
 soudun would hear of it, and the foe must not suspect the 
 truth. You really behave like a child !" 
 
 In point of fact, by midday many persons in Issoudun, and 
 foremost of all Maxence Gilet, had been informed of Joseph's 
 opinion, which led to a great hunt for old pictures that had 
 lain forgotten, and to the disinterment of some execrable 
 daubs. Max repented of having prompted the old man to 
 give away the pictures ; and his rage against the rightful heirs, 
 on learning old Hochon's scheme, was increased by what he 
 called his stupidity. Eeligious influence on this feeble crea- 
 ture was the only thing to be dreaded. Hence the warning 
 given him by his two allies confirmed Max in his determina- 
 tion to realize all Eouget's mortgages, and to borrow on his 
 land so as to invest in State securities at once. But he con- 
 sidered the necessity for getting rid of the Parisians as even 
 more pressing. Now the talents of a Mascarille or a Scapin 
 would have found this a hard problem to solve. 
 
 Flore, counseled by Max, began to say that monsieur tired 
 himself too much by taking walks; that at his age he needed 
 carriage exercise. This was necessary as a pretext for the 
 expeditions to be made, without the neighbors knowing it, to 
 Bourges, Vierzon, Chateauroux, and Vatan, wherever this 
 scheme for calling in his investments might require that 
 Eouget, Max, and Flore should go. So by the end of the week 
 all Issoudun was startled by the news that Pere Eouget had 
 sent to Bourges for a carriage, a step which the Knights of 
 Idlesse interpreted in favor of la Eabouilleuse. Flore and Max 
 purchased a hideous traveling-chaise with rickety windows 
 and a split leather hood, that had seen two-and-twenty years, 
 and nine campaigns ; this they bought at a sale on the death 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 197 
 
 of a colonel, a great friend of Marshal Bertrand's, who, during 
 the absence of the Emperor's faithful follower, had under- 
 taken the charge of his estates in le Berry. This vehicle, 
 painted dark-green, was not unlike a barouche, but the pole 
 had been altered and shafts substituted, so that it could be 
 drawn by one horse. It was now one of those carriages which 
 reduced fortunes have made so fashionable, which, indeed, 
 were honestly designated as demi-fortunes, for they were 
 originally called seringues. The lining of this demi-fortune, 
 sold as a barouche, was moth-eaten; the trimmings were like 
 a pensioner's stripes; it rattled like old iron; but it cost no 
 more than four hundred and fifty francs, and Max bought 
 of the troops in garrison at Bourges a strong, well-broken 
 mare to draw it. He had this vehicle repainted dark-brown, 
 and found a fairly good set of second-hand harness, and the 
 town of Issoudun was agitated from top to bottom, on the 
 watch for Pere Eouget's "turn-out." 
 
 The first time the good man made use of his barouche the 
 noise brought every household to the front door, and all the 
 windows were full of peeping heads. The second time he 
 drove as far as Bourges, where, to avoid all further trouble 
 in connection with the transactions, advised — or, if you will, 
 commanded — ^by Flore Brazier, he signed in the notary's office 
 a power of attorney in favor of Maxence Gilet, enabling him 
 to transfer all the moneys mentioned in the document. Flore 
 undertook to settle with monsieur as to the loans in Issoudun 
 and the immediate neighborhood. Eouget went to the first 
 notary in Bourges and desired him to find him a hundred and 
 forty thousand francs on the security of his land. 
 
 N"o one at Issoudun knew anything about these proceed- 
 ings, so quietly and cleverly carried out. Max, a good horse- 
 man, could get to Bourges and back between five in the morn- 
 ing and five in the afternoon on his horse, and Flore never 
 left the old man. Old Bouget had consented without demur 
 to the alterations which Flore had suggested to him; but he 
 insisted that the bond bearing fifty thousand francs a year 
 interest should stand as life-interest only in Mademoiselle 
 
198 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Brazier's name, and that the capital should remain his abso- 
 lutely. The tenacity displayed by the old man in the private 
 struggle which arose over this question made Max very un- 
 easy, for he fancied he could discern in it some reflections 
 inspired by the sight of his natural heirs. 
 
 In the midst of these great changes, which Max hoped to 
 conceal from the prying townsfolk, he forgot the corn-dealer. 
 Fario was preparing to deliver his orders, after much travel- 
 ing and bargaining, with a view to raise the price of seed- 
 corn. But the day after his return to Issoudun, living op- 
 posite the Capuchin chapel, he saw the roof black with pigeons. 
 He cursed himself for having neglected to examine the roof, 
 and hastily went across to his store-house, where he found 
 half his com devoured. Myriads of traces left by mice, rats, 
 and field-mice betrayed another cause of the ruin. The church 
 was a perfect IToah's ark. But the Spaniard turned as white 
 as linen with fury when, on trying to calculate the extent of the 
 loss and damage, he discovered that the lower strata of grain 
 were soaked and sprouting, from a quantity of water having 
 been injected into the heart of the corn-heaps by means of a 
 tin tube — an idea of Max's. Pigeons and rats might be ac- 
 counted for by animal instinct; but in this last piece of 
 malice the hand of man was evident. 
 
 Pario sat down on an altar-step in a side chapel, and hid 
 his head in his hands. After half an hour's meditations — 
 a Spaniard's meditations — on looking up, he saw the squirrel 
 which young Goddet had insisted on placing there as boarder, 
 playing with its tail on the transom supporting the roof- 
 beam. The Spaniard rose calmly, showing his shop-clerk a 
 face as impassive as an Arab's. Pario made no lamentation. 
 He went home, found some laborers to pack the good com, 
 and spread what was damp in the sun to dry, so as to save as 
 much as possible; then he set to work to deliver his orders, 
 calculating the loss at three-fifths. But as his own trans- 
 actions had sent prices up, he lost again in repurchasing those 
 three-fifths ; thus his total loss was of more than half. 
 
 The corn-dealer, who had no enemies, unerringly attributed 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 199 
 
 this piece of revenge to Gilet. It was clear to him that Max 
 and some others, the inventors of so many nocturnal pranks, 
 had undoubtedly dragged his cart up to the tower, and amused 
 themselves by ruining him; his loss, indeed, amounted to a 
 thousand crowns, almost all the capital he had laboriously 
 accumulated since the peace. Inspired by the hope of revenge, 
 the man put forth all the perseverance and acumen of a spy 
 who has been promised a handsome reward. Lurking in am- 
 bush by night in the town, he obtained absolute proof of the 
 proceedings of the Knights of Idlesse ; he saw them, he counted 
 them; he watched their trysts, and their suppers at la Co- 
 gnette's; then He hid himself to witness one of their tricks, 
 and became familiar with their nocturnal doings. 
 
 In spite of his rides and his anxieties. Max would not 
 neglect this business of the night ; in the first place, to prevent 
 any one suspecting the grand financial operations carried on 
 with Pere Eouget's investments; and, in the second place, to 
 keep his friends up to the mark. ISTow the Order had agreed 
 to achieve a stroke which should be talked of for years. On a 
 certain night every watch-dog in the town and suburbs was to 
 have a pill of poison. Fario overheard them as they came out 
 of la Cognette's, chuckling beforehand over the success of this 
 practical joke, and the universal mourning to be caused by 
 this massacre of the innocents. Besides, what fears this 
 general execution would give rise to, by hinting at sinister 
 designs on the houses thus deprived of their guardians ! 
 
 "Pario's cart will be quite forgotten perhaps," said Goddet. 
 
 Pario no longer needed this speech to confirm his suspicions ; 
 besides, he had laid his plans. 
 
 After a stay of three weeks, Agathe, like Madame Hochon, 
 recognized the truth of the old miser's views — it would take 
 years to counteract the influence exerted over her brother by 
 la Eabouilleuse and Max. Agathe had made no progress in 
 Jean- Jacques' confidence ; she had never been left alone with 
 him. On the contrary. Mademoiselle Brazier triumphed over 
 the heirs by taking Agathe out driving in the carriage, seated 
 
200 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 by her on the back seat, while Monsieur Eouget and his nephew 
 sat in front. Mother and son anxiously awaited a reply to 
 their confidential letter to Desroches. 
 
 On the very eve of the day when the watch-dogs were to be 
 poisoned, Joseph, who was dying of weariness at Issoudun, 
 received two letters — one from Schinner, the great painter, 
 whose age allowed of a closer and more intimate acquaint- 
 ance than with Gros, their master, and the other from Des- 
 roches. This was the first, bearing the stamp of Beaumont- 
 sur-Oise : — 
 
 "Mt dear Joseph, — I have finished the most important 
 paintings in the Chateau de Presles for the Comte de Serizy. 
 I have left the borders and decorative panels; and I have so 
 strongly recommended you to the Count, and to Grindot, his 
 architect, that you have only to pack up your brushes and 
 come. The prices agreed on will satisfy you. I am ofE to 
 Italy with my wife, so you can have Mistigris to help you. 
 The young rascal is clever ; I place him at your service. He 
 is as lively as a Pierrot already at the idea of enjoying himself 
 at Presles. Farewell, my dear Joseph ; if I am away and send 
 nothing to the next Salon, you must fill my place. Yes, dear 
 Jo jo, your picture is a masterpiece, I am sure of it; but a 
 masterpiece that will raise a hue and cry of 'Eomanticism !' 
 and you are preparing a life for yourself like that of the devil 
 in holy water. But, after all, as that rogue Mistigris says — 
 he transposes or puns on every proverb — life is bad to beat. 
 What on earth are you doing at Issoudun? Farewell. — 
 Your friend, 
 
 "SOHINNER." 
 
 This was Desroches' letter: — 
 
 "Mt dear Joseph, — Your Monsieur Hochon seems to me 
 an old man of great good sense, and you give me a high idea 
 of his intelligence ; he is perfectly right. And, since you ask 
 my opinion, I think your mother should stay at Issoudun 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 201 
 
 with Madame Hoehon, paying a small sum, say four hundred 
 francs a year, as compensation for her board. Madame 
 Bridau, I should say, should be entirely guided by Monsieur 
 Hochon's advice. But your excellent mother will be full of 
 scruples in opposition to people who have none, and whose con- 
 duct shows a masterly policy. That Maxence is a dangerous 
 fellow, you are right there ; he is a man of far stronger temper 
 than Philippe. This rascal makes his vices serve his for- 
 tunes; he does not amuse himself for nothing, like your 
 brother, whose frolics were never of any use. All you tell 
 me appalls me, for I could not do much by going to Issoudun. 
 Monsieur Hoehon, acting through your mother, will be of 
 more use than I can be. 
 
 "As for you, you may as well come home; you are of no 
 good at all in a business requiring constant alertness, minute 
 observation, servile attentions, discretion in speech, and dis- 
 simtilation in looks, — all quite antipathetic to an artist. If 
 they tell you there is no will, they have had one made a long 
 time since, you may be sure. But wills are not irrevocable; 
 and as long as your imbecile uncle lives, he will certainly be 
 open to the influence of remorse and religion. Your fortune 
 will be the result of a pitched battle between the Church and 
 la Eabouilleuse. A moment will inevitably come when that 
 woman will lose her power over the old man, and religion will 
 be all-powerful. So long as your uncle has made nothing 
 over to them by deed of gift, nor altered his investments and 
 holdings, at the moment when religion gets the upper hand 
 everything will be possible. 
 
 "You had better beg Monsieur Hoehon to keep an eye as 
 far as possible on your uncle's possessions. It is important to 
 ascertain whether he holds mortgages, and how and in whose 
 name the deeds are drawn. It is so easy to fill an old man 
 with fears for his life when he is stripping himself of his 
 property in favor of strangers, that a rightful heir with a 
 very little cunning can nip such spoliations in the bud. But 
 is your mother, with her ignorance of the world, her dis- 
 interestedness, and her religious ideas, a likely person to 
 manage such an intrigue ? 
 
202 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "In short, I can only explain the position. What you have 
 done so far must have given the alarm, and perhaps your 
 antagonists are taking steps to protect themselves." 
 
 "That is what I call sound advice, kindly given!" cried 
 Monsieur Hochon, proud of finding himself appreciated by a 
 Paris attorney. 
 
 "Oh, Desroches is a capital good fellow," said Joseph. 
 
 "It might be useful to show that letter to the two women," 
 said the old man. 
 
 "Here it is," said Joseph, giving the letter to Hochon. "As 
 for me, I will be off to-morrow, and will go to take leave of 
 my uncle." 
 
 "Ah !" said Monsieur Hochon, "I see that in a postscript 
 Monsieur Desroches desires you to burn the letter." 
 
 "Burn it after showing it to my mother," said the painter. 
 
 Joseph Bridau dressed, crossed the little avenue, and was 
 shown in to his uncle, who was ]ust finishing breakfast. 
 Max and Flore were at table with him. 
 
 "Do not disturb yourself, my dear uncle; I have come to 
 take leave of you." 
 
 "You are going ?" said Max with a look at Flore. 
 
 "Yes, I have some work to do at Monsieur de Serizy's 
 chateau, ajid I am all the more eager because he has a long 
 enough arm to be of service to my poor brother with the 
 Supreme Court." 
 
 "Well, well; work," said the old man, with a stupid look, 
 and indeed Eouget seemed to Joseph extraordinarily altered. 
 "You must work. I am sorry you are going " 
 
 "Oh, my mother will remain some time yet," replied 
 Joseph. 
 
 Max gave his lips a twist, which conveyed to the house- 
 keeper, "They are going to act on the plan Baruch spoke of." 
 
 "I am very glad I came," Joseph went on, "for I have had 
 the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and you have en- 
 riched my studio." 
 
 "Yes, indeed !" said la Eabouilleuse, "instead of enlighten- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 203 
 
 ing your uncle as to the value of the pictures, which is said to 
 be more than a hundred thousand francs, you packed them 
 off to Paris pretty quick. Poor, dear man, he is like a 
 child. . . . Why, I have Just been told that there is at 
 Bourges a little Poulet — I mean a Poussin — which was in the 
 Cathedral before the Eevolution, and that alone is worth 
 thirty thousand francs." 
 
 "That was not right, nephew," said the old man, at a nod 
 from Mas, which Joseph could not see. 
 
 "Come now, honestly," said the soldier, laughing, "on your 
 honor, what do you suppose your pictures are worth? By 
 Jove ! you have jockeyed your uncle very prettily. Well, you 
 had a right to do it. Uncles are made to be plundered. 
 Nature bestowed no uncles on me ; but, by all that's holy, if I 
 had any, I would not spare them !" 
 
 "Did you know, monsieur," asked Flore of Kouget, "how 
 much your pictures were worth? — How much did you say, 
 Monsieur Joseph?" 
 
 'Well," said the painter, turning as red as a beetroot, "the 
 pictures are worth a good round sum." 
 
 "It is said that you valued them at a hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs to Monsieur Hochon. Is that true ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the painter, as candid as a child. 
 
 "And had you any intention," said Flore to the old man, 
 "of giving your nephew a hundred and fifty thousand francs ?" 
 
 "Never, never," cried Eouget, on whom Flore had fixed a 
 steady eye. 
 
 "It is quite easily settled," said the painter. "I will send 
 them back to you, uncle." 
 
 "Ko, no, keep them," said the old feUow. 
 
 "I will send them back, uncle," repeated Joseph, offended 
 by the insulting silence of Maxenee Gilet and Flore Brazier. 
 "I have in my brush the means of making my fortune, with- 
 out owing anything to anybody — even to my uncle. I wish 
 you good-day, mademoiselle. Good-morning, monsieur." 
 
 And Joseph recrossed the road in a state of irritation which 
 an artist may conceive of. All the Hochon family were in the 
 
204 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 sitting-room. Seeing Joseph gesticulating and muttering to 
 himself, they inquired what was the matter. Then, before 
 Baruch and Frangois, the painter, as open as the day, repeated 
 the scene he had just gone through, which, in a couple of 
 hours, was the talk of the whole town, every one embroidering 
 the story with more or less impudent additions. Some main- 
 tained that the painter had been roughly handled by Max, 
 others that he had been insolent to Mademoiselle Brazier, and 
 that Max had turned him out of the house. 
 
 "Oh, what a child your boy is !" said Hochon to Madame 
 Bridau. "The simple fellow has been fooled by a scene got 
 up for the day when he should be leaving. Why, Max and 
 la Eabouilleuse have known for this fortnight past what the 
 value of the pictures is, since Joseph was so silly as to men- 
 tion it in the presence of my grandsons, who were only too 
 eager to repeat it to all the world. Your artist ought to have 
 left without notice." 
 
 "My son is right to restore the pictures if they are so valu- 
 able," said Agathe. 
 
 "If they are worth two hundred thousand francs, by his 
 account," said old Hochon, "he is an idiot for allowing him- 
 self to be compelled to return them; for, at any rate, you 
 would have had that much of the property, whereas, as mat- 
 ters stand, you will get nothing ! — And this is almost reason 
 enough for your brother to refuse to see you again." 
 
 Between midnight and one in the morning the Knights of 
 Idlesse began their distribution of free rations to the dogs of 
 the town. This memorable expedition ended only at three 
 in the morning, and then the mischievous wretches met for 
 supper at la Cognette's. At half-past four, in the morning 
 twilight, they crept home. At the instant when Max turned 
 out of the Eue de I'Avenier into the Grand' Eue, Pario, in 
 ambush in a recess, stabbed him with a knife, aiming straight 
 at the heart, pulled out the weapon, and fled to the moat by la 
 Villate, where he wiped the knife on his handkerchief. The 
 Spaniard then rinsed the handkerchief in the Borrowed 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 205 
 
 Stream, and quietly -went home to Saint-Paterne, where he 
 went to bed, getting in at a window he had left unfastened ; 
 his new shop-boy woke him next morning, finding him sound 
 asleep. 
 
 Max as he fell uttered a fearful shriek, too genuine to be 
 misunderstood. Lousteau-Prangin, the son of a magistrate, 
 a distant relation of the late sub-delegate, and young Goddet, 
 who both lived at the bottom of the Grand' Kue, ran up the 
 street again as fast as they could fly, saying "Max is being 
 killed ! Help !" — But not a dog barked, and the inhabitants, 
 inured to the tricks of these night-birds, did not stir. 
 
 When the two Knights came up Max had fainted. It was 
 necessary to call up Monsieur Goddet the elder. Max had 
 recognized Fario; but when, at five in the morning, he had 
 fully recovered his wits, seeing himself surrounded by several 
 persons, and feeling that the wound was not mortal, it sud- 
 denly struck him that he might take advantage of this at- 
 tempted murder, and he exclaimed in a feeble voice, "I fancied 
 I saw the eyes and face of that damned painter." 
 
 Upon this, Lousteau-Prangin ran oil to fetch his father, the 
 examining Judge. Max was carried home by old Cognet, the 
 younger Goddet, and two men whom they got out of bed. La 
 Cognette and Goddet senior walked by the side of Max, who 
 was laid on a mattress placed on two poles. Monsieur Goddet 
 would do nothing till Max was in his bed. 
 
 Those who carried him naturally looked across at Hochon's 
 house while Kouski was getting up, and they saw the woman- 
 servant sweeping. In this house, as in most country places, 
 the door was opened at a very early hour. The only words 
 Max had spoken had aroused suspicion, and the surgeon called 
 across the road : 
 
 "Gritte, is Monsieur Joseph Bridau in bed ?" 
 
 "Dear me," said she, "he went out at about half-past 
 four; he walked up and down his room all night. I can't 
 think what had taken him." 
 
 "A pretty fellow, is your painter !" said one and another. 
 
 And the party went in, leaving the woman in constema- 
 
206 A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 tion; she had seen Max lying on the mattress, his shirt stained 
 with blood, apparently dying. 
 
 What had "taken" Joseph and disturbed him all night, 
 every artist will understand. He pictured himself as the talk 
 of Issoudun; he was supposed to be a sharper, anything but 
 what he wanted to be — an honest fellow, a hard-working 
 artist. He would have given his own picture to be able to fly 
 like a swallow to Paris and fling his uncle's pictures in Max's 
 face. To be the victim and be thought the spoiler ! What 
 a mockery! And so at daybreak he had rushed out of the 
 house, and was pacing the avenue of poplars leading to Tivoli 
 to walk off his excitement. While the innocent youth was 
 promising himself, by way of consolation, never to set foot 
 in the place again, Max was preparing for him a catastrophe 
 full of horror to a sensitive mind. 
 
 As soon as Monsieur Goddet had probed the wound, and 
 ascertained that the knife, turned by a little pocket-book, had 
 happily missed aim, though it had left a frightful gash, he 
 did as all doctors do, and especially country surgeons — he gave 
 himself airs of importance, and "could not answer for the 
 patient's life." Then, after dressing the rascally soldier's 
 wound, he went away. This medical verdict he repeated to la 
 Eabouilleuse, to Jean-Jacques Eouget, to Kouski, and Vedie. 
 La Eabouilleuse went back to her dear Max drowned in tears, 
 while Kouski and Vedie informed the crowd assembled at the 
 door that the captain was as good as done for. The result 
 of this news was that above two hundred persons collected 
 in groups on the Place Saint-Jean and in the upper and lower 
 Narette. 
 
 "I shall not be in bed a month," said Max to Flore, "and I 
 know who struck the blow. But we will take advantage of it 
 to get rid of the Parisians. I said I fancied I had recognized 
 the painter; so pretend that I am dying, and try to have 
 Joseph Bridau arrested ; we will give him a taste of prison for 
 a couple of days. I think I know the mother well enough 
 to feel sure that she will be off to Paris then post-haste with 
 her painter. Then we need no longer fear the volley of priests 
 they talked of firing at our old idiot." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 207 
 
 When Flore Brazier went down, she found the mob quite 
 prepared to receive the impression she wished to make 
 on them; she appeared before them with tears in her eyes, 
 and remarked that the painter, "who for that matter looked 
 bad enough for anything," had quarreled fiercely with Max the 
 day before about the pictures he had "boned" from Pere 
 Rouget. "That brigand — for you have only to look in his face 
 to feel sure — thinks that if Max were out of the way, his uncle 
 would leave him his fortune. As if," added she, "a brother 
 wasn't closer than a nephew! Max is Doctor Eouget's son; 
 the old man owned up as much afore he died." 
 
 "Ay, he thought he could do the trick before he left; he 
 planned it very neatly; he is going to-day," said one of the 
 Knights of Idlesse. 
 
 "Max has not a single enemy in the town," observed an- 
 other. 
 
 "Besides, Max recognized the painter," said la Rabouilleuse. 
 
 "Where is that damned Parisian ? Let us find him," cried 
 one and another. 
 
 "Find him? Why, he stole out of Monsieur Hochon's 
 house before daylight." 
 
 One of the Knights at once ran off to find Monsieur Mouille- 
 ron. The crowd was still swelling, and voices grew threat- 
 ening. Excited groups filled the whole of the Grande 
 Narette; others stood in front of the Church of Saint-Jean. 
 A mob filled the Villate gate where the lower Narette ends. 
 It was impossible to stir above or below the Place Saint-Jean. 
 It was like the fag-end of a procession. And Messieurs 
 Lousteau-Prangin and Mouilleron, with the Superintendent 
 of Police, the Lieutenant of the Gendarmerie, and his ser- 
 geant with two gendarmes, had some difficulty in getting to 
 the spot, which they reached between two hedges of the 
 populace, whose shouts and yells could not fail to prejudice 
 them against the "Parisian," to whom circumstantial evidence 
 pointed so strongly though he was unjustly accused. 
 
 After an interview between Max and the lawyers, Mon- 
 sieur Mouilleron sent the Superintendent of Police and the 
 
208 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 sergeant, with one gendarme, to examine what, in the language 
 of police reports, is called the Scene of the Crime. Then 
 Monilleron and Lousteau-Prangin, escorted by the lieutenant, 
 crossed from Pere Eouget's house to Monsieur Hoehon's, 
 which was guarded at the garden entrance by two gendarmes, 
 while two more were posted at the street-door. The mob was 
 still collecting ; the whole town was in a hubbub in the Grand' 
 Rue. 
 
 Grritte had long since flown, breathless with terror, to her 
 master's room, exclaiming : 
 
 "Monsieur, they are going to rob the house. — All the town 
 is in a riot ! — Monsieur Maxenee Gilet is killed; he is going to 
 die ! — And they say that it was Monsieur Joseph that stabbed 
 him!" 
 
 Monsieur Hochon hastily dressed and came down; but see- 
 ing the furious crowd, he at once retreated within doors 
 and barred the entrance. On questioning Gritte, he ascertained 
 that his guest, after walking about all night in great excite- 
 ment, had gone out before daylight, and that he had not 
 come in. Much alarmed, he went to his wife's room; the 
 noise had just roused her, and he told her the horrible report 
 which, true or false, had brought all Issoudun out to the 
 Place Saint-Jean. 
 
 "Of course he is innocent !" said Madame Hochon. 
 
 "But before his innocence is proved, the mob may force their 
 way in and rob us," said Monsieur Hochon, who had turned 
 ashy pale. He had gold in his cellars. 
 
 "And Agathe?" 
 
 "She is sleeping like a marmot." 
 
 "Ah, so much the better !" said Madame Hochon ; "I only 
 wish she could sleep on till this matter is cleared up. Such 
 a blow might kill the poor child." 
 
 But Agathe soon woke; she came down half-dressed, for 
 Gritte's hints and concealments, when she questioned the 
 woman, had sickened her heart and brain. She found Mad- 
 ame Hochon pale, and her eyes full of tears, standing at one 
 of the drawing-room windows with her husband. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 209 
 
 "Courage, my child ! God sends us all our troubles," said 
 the old lady. "Joseph is accused " 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 "Of a wicked deed he cannot possibly have done," said Mad- 
 ame Hoehon. 
 
 On hearing this speech, and seeing the lieutenant of the 
 watch come in with Messieurs Lousteau-Prangin and Mouille- 
 ron, Agathe fainted away. 
 
 "Look here," said Monsieur Hoehon to his wife and Gritte, 
 "just carry Madame Bridau away. Women are only a trouble 
 under such circumstances. Go away, both of you, with her, 
 and stay in your room. — Gentlemen, pray be seated," added 
 the old man. "The mistake to which we owe this visit will, 
 I hope, soon be cleared up." 
 
 "Even if it is a mistake," said Monsieur Mouilleron, "the 
 mob are so madly exasperated, and excited to such a pitch, 
 that I am alarmed for the accused. — I wish I could get him to 
 the Court-house, and soothe the public mind." 
 
 "Who could have imagined that Monsieur Maxence Gilet 
 was so much beloved?" said Lousteau-Prangin. 
 
 "There are twelve hundred people at this moment pouring 
 out of the Eoman suburb," said the lieutenant, "so one of my 
 men has just told me — and shrieking for the assassin's 
 death." 
 
 "Where is your guest?" asked Monsieur Mouilleron. 
 
 "He is gone for a walk in the country, I believe," said 
 Hoehon. 
 
 "Call back Gritte," said the examining judge gravely. 
 "I hoped that Monsieur Bridau might not have left the 
 house. You know, of course, that the crime was committed 
 only a few yards from this house, just at daybreak ?" 
 
 While Monsieur Hoehon went to fetch Gritte, the three 
 functionaries exchanged glances full of meaning. 
 
 "I never took to that painter's face," said the lieutenant to 
 Monsieur Mouilleron. 
 
 "Listen to me," said the lawyer to Gritte, as she came in. 
 
 14 
 
210 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "You saw Monsieur Joseph Bridau go out this moming, I 
 am told?" 
 
 "Yes, sir/' replied she, shaking like a leaf. 
 
 "At what hour?" 
 
 "Directly after I got up ; for he was tramping in his room 
 all night, and he was dressed when I came down." 
 
 "Was it daylight?" 
 
 "Twilight." 
 
 "And he seemed excited ?" 
 
 "I should think he did ! — He seemed to me quite how-eome- 
 you-so." 
 
 "Send one of your men for my clerk," said Lousteau- 
 Prangin to the lieutenant, "and tell him to bring forms " 
 
 "Good God! don't be in a hurry," said Monsieur Hochon. 
 "The young man's excitement may be accounted for without 
 any premeditated crime. He is starting for Paris to-day in 
 consequence of a matter in which Gilet and Mademoiselle 
 Flore Brazier chose to doubt his honesty." 
 
 "Yes, the business about the pictures," said Monsieur Mou- 
 illeron. "It was the cause of a vehement quarrel yesterday, 
 and artists are always ready to catch fire under the thatch, as 
 they say." 
 
 "Who in all Issoudun would have any interest in killing 
 Max?" said Lousteau. "Nobody; no jealous husband, no 
 one whatever, for the man has never injured any one." 
 
 "But what was Monsieur Gilet doing in the streets at half- 
 past four in the morning ?" said Monsieur Hochon. 
 
 "Look here. Monsieur Hochon, leave us to manage our own 
 business," replied Mouilleron. "You do not know all. Max 
 saw and knew your painter " 
 
 At this instant a roar started from the bottom of the town, 
 increasing as it rolled up the Grande Karette like the advance 
 of a peal of thunder. 
 
 "Here he is ! — ^here he is ! They have got him !" These 
 words stood out clearly above the deep bars of a terrific growl 
 from the mob. In fact, poor Joseph Bridau, coming quietly 
 home past the mill at Landrole to be in time for breakfast, was 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 211 
 
 seen as he reached the Place Misere by everybody at once. 
 Happily for him, two men at arms came running down to 
 rescue him from the mob of the Eoman suburb, who had al- 
 ready seized him roughly by the arms, threatening to kill him. 
 
 "Make way ! Clear out !" said the gendarmes, calling two 
 others to come and walk one in front and one behind Bridau. 
 
 "You see, monsieur," said one of the four who had taken 
 hold of him, "our skin is in danger at this moment as much 
 as yours. Innocent or guilty, we must protect you against the 
 riot caused by the murder of Captain Gilet ; these people will 
 not be satisfied with accusing you ; they believe you to be the 
 assassin as sure as death. Monsieur Gilet is worshiped by 
 those men— look at them; they would love to execute justice 
 on you themselves. We saw them in 1830 when they thrashed 
 the excise men; it was no joke, I can tell you." 
 
 Joseph Bridau turned as pale as death, and collected all 
 his strength to keep on his feet. 
 
 "After all," said he, "I had nothing to do with it. Come 
 on!" 
 
 And he had to bear his cross ! He was the object of yells, 
 abuse, threats of death, at every step of the horrible walk from 
 the Place Misere to the Place Saint-Jean. The gendarmes 
 were obliged to draw their swords to intimidate the angry 
 crowd who threw stones at them. The force barely escaped 
 being hurt, and some of the missiles hit Joseph's legs, shoul- 
 ders, and hat. 
 
 "Here we are," said one of the men, as they went into Mon- 
 sieur Hochon's room; "and it was not an easy job. Lieuten- 
 ant." 
 
 "I^ow, the next thing is to disperse this crowd, and I see 
 but one way, gentlemen," said the officer to the magistrates. 
 "It is to get Monsieur Bridau to the Palais de Justice by 
 making him walk between you. I and all my men will keep 
 close round you. It is impossible to answer for what may 
 happen when you are face to face with six thousand furious 
 creatures." 
 
 "You are right," said Monsieur Hochon, still quaking for 
 his gold. 
 
212 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "If that is the best way you have at IssoudTin of protect- 
 ing innocence, I must congratulate you!" said Joseph. "I 
 have already been within an ace of being stoned " 
 
 "Do you want to see your host's house attacked and pil- 
 laged ?" said the lieutenant. "Could we, with our swords, offer 
 effectual resistance to a surge of men driven on by a posse of 
 angry people who know nothing of the forms of justice ?" 
 
 "Oh ! come on, gentlemen ; we will talk it out afterwards," 
 said Joseph, who had recovered his presence of mind. 
 
 "Make way, my friends," said the lieutenant, "he is 
 arrested ; we are going to take him to the Palais de Justice." 
 
 "Eespect the law, my good fellows !" said Monsieur Mouille- 
 ron. 
 
 "Would not you sooner see him guillotined ?" said one of the 
 gendarmes to a menacing group. 
 
 "Ay, ay!" cried an infuriated bystander. "Guillotine 
 him!" 
 
 "He is to be guillotined !" repeated some women. 
 
 At the bottom of the Grande JSTarette they were saying : 
 
 "They are taking him ofE to be guillotined; the knife was 
 found upon him ! Oh ! the wretch ! — That is your Parisian ! 
 — Why, he has crime written on his face !" 
 
 Though Joseph's blood seethed in his head, he walked from 
 the Place Saint-Jean to the Palais de Justice with admirable 
 coolness and dignity. He was, nevertheless, glad enough when 
 he found himself in Monsieur Lousteau-Prangin's office. 
 
 "I need hardly tell you, gentlemen, I suppose, that I am 
 innocent," said he, addressing Monsieur Mouilleron, Monsieur 
 Lousteau-Prangin, and the clerk. "I can only beg you to help 
 me to prove mv innocence. I know nothing about the mat- 
 ter " 
 
 When the judge had explained to Joseph all the evidence 
 against him, ending with Max's deposition, Joseph was 
 astounded. 
 
 "Why," said he, "I did not leave the house till past five; I 
 walked down the Grand' Eue, and at half-past five I was gaz- 
 ing at the front of your parish church at Saint-Cyr. I stopped 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 213 
 
 to speak for a moment to the bell-ringer, who was about to 
 toll the AngeluSj asking him some questions about the build- 
 ing, which had struck me as quaint and unfinished. Then 
 I crossed the vegetable market, where the women were already 
 collecting. From thence I went by the Place Misere and the 
 Pont-aux-Anes to the mill of Landrole, where I quietly 
 watched the ducks for five or six minutes; the miller's men 
 must have noticed me. I saw some women coming to the 
 washing-place ; they must be there still ; they began to laugh 
 at me, remarking that I was no beauty; I replied that an 
 ugly case might contain Jewels. I went along the avenue as 
 far as Tiv'oli, where I talked to the gardener. . . . Verify 
 all these statements, and do not arrest me, I beg, for I give 
 you my word of honor to remain in your office till you are con- 
 vinced of my innocence." 
 
 This rational statement, made without any hesitation, and 
 with the ease of a man sure of his case, made some impression 
 on the lawyers. 
 
 "Well, we must summons and find all these people," said 
 Monsieur Mouilleron, "but that is not to be done in a day. 
 Make up your mind, in your own interest, to remain in the 
 lock-up of the Palais de Justice." 
 
 "Then let me write to reassure my mother, poor woman. — 
 Oh, you may read the letter !" 
 
 The request was too reasonable to be refused, and Joseph 
 wrote these few lines : 
 
 "Do not be uneasy, my dear mother; the mistake of which 
 I am the victim will be easily cleared up, and I have given the 
 clue. To-morrow, or perhaps this evening, I shall be free. I 
 embrace you ; and say to Monsieur and Madame Hochon how 
 grieved I am by this worry, which is indeed no fault of mine, 
 for it is the result of some mistake which I do not yet under- 
 stand." 
 
 When this letter arrived, Madame Bridau was half-dead 
 of nervous terrors, and the remedies Monsieur Goddet was 
 persuading her to sip had no effect whatever. But the read- 
 ing of this letter was like a balm ; after a few hysterical sobs 
 Agathe sank into the quiescence that succeeds such a crisis. 
 
214 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 When Monsieur Goddet came again to visit his patient, he 
 found her regretting having left Paris. 
 
 "God is punishing me," said she, virith tears in her eyes. 
 "Oh, my dear godmother, ought I not to have trusted in Him, 
 and have looked to His mercy for my brother's fortune ?'" 
 
 "Madame," said Hochon in her ear, "if your son is innocent. 
 Max is an utter villain, and vi^e shall not overmatch him in the 
 business ; so go back to Paris." 
 
 "And how is Monsieur Gilet going on?" asked Madame 
 Hochon of the doctor. 
 
 "The wound is serious, but not mortal. A month of care, 
 and he will be all right again. I left him writing to Mon- 
 sieur Mouilleron to request him to release your son," said he 
 to Madame Bridau. "Oh ! Max is a good fellow. I told him 
 what a state you were in ; and then he remembered a detail of 
 the murderer's dress, which proved to him that he could not 
 be your son ; the assassin had on list shoes, and it is perfectly 
 certain that your son went out walking in boots." 
 
 "Ah ! God forgive him the ill he has done me !" 
 
 At nightfall a man had left a note for Gilet, written in a 
 feigned hand, and in these words : 
 
 "Captain Gilet must not leave an innocent man in the 
 hands of the law. The person who dealt the blow promises not 
 to repeat it if Monsieur Gilet delivers Monsieur Joseph 
 Bridau without denouncing the real culprit." 
 
 On reading this letter, which he burnt. Max wrote to Mon- 
 sieur Mouilleron a note mentioning the remark he had made to 
 Monsieur Goddet, begging him to release Joseph, and to come 
 and see him that he might explain matters. 
 
 By the time this note reached Monsieur Mouilleron, 
 Lousteau-Prangin had already proved the truth of Joseph's 
 account of himself, by the evidence of the bell-ringer, of a 
 market-woman, of the washerwomen, the men of the mill, 
 and the gardener from Frapesle. Max's letter finally demon- 
 strated the innocence of the accused, v/hom Monsieur Mouille- 
 ron himself escorted back to Monsieur Hochon's. Joseph 
 was received by his mother with such eager tenderness, that. 
 
A BAOHBLOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 215 
 
 like the husband in la Fontaine's fable, this poor misprized 
 son was thankful to chance for an annoyance which had 
 secured him such a demonstration of affection. 
 
 "Of course," said Monsieur Mouilleron, with an all-know- 
 ing air, "I saw at once, by the way you faced the mob, that you 
 were innocent; but in spite of my convictions, you see, when 
 you know what Issoudun is, the best way to protect you was 
 to take you to prison as we did. I must say you put a good 
 face on the matter." 
 
 "I was thinking of something else," replied the artist sim- 
 ply. "I know an officer who told me that he was once arrested 
 in Dalmatia under somewhat similar circumstances, on his 
 way home from an early morning walk, by an excited mob. — 
 The similarity struck me, and I was studying all those heads 
 with the idea of painting a riot in 1793. . . . And then 
 I was saying to myself, 'Greedy wretch ! you have got no more 
 than you deserve for coming fortune-hunting instead of paint- 
 ing in your studio ' " 
 
 "If you will allow me to offer you a piece of advice," said 
 the public prosecutor, "you will get into a post-chaise this 
 evening at eleven o'clock — the postmaster will let you have one 
 — and get back to Paris by diligence from Bourges." 
 
 "That is my opinion too," said Monsieur Hochon, who was 
 dying to be rid of his guest. 
 
 "And it is my most earnest wish to be out of Issoudun, 
 though I leave my only friend here," replied Agathe, taking 
 Madame Hochon's hand and kissing it. "When shall I see 
 you again?" 
 
 "Ah! my child, we shall never meet again till we meet 
 above! We have suffered so much here," she added, in an 
 undertone, "that God will have pity on us." 
 
 A moment after, when Monsieur Mouilleron had been over 
 to see Max, Gritte greatly astonished Monsieur and Madame 
 Hochon, Agathe, Joseph, and Adolphine by announcing a call 
 from Monsieur Eouget. Jean-Jacques had come to take leave 
 of his sister, and to offer her the carriage to take her to 
 Bourges. 
 
216 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Ah, your pictures have done us an ill-turn," said Agathe. 
 
 "Keep them, sister," said the old man, who did not yet be- 
 lieve in the value of the paintings. 
 
 "JSTeighbor Eouget," said Monsieur Hoehon, "our relations 
 are our best friends and protectors, especially when they are 
 such as your sister Agathe and your nephew Joseph." 
 
 "Perhaps so," said the old fellow, in bewilderment. 
 
 "You must be thinking of making a Christian end," said 
 Madame Hoehon. 
 
 "Oh, Jean- Jacques, what a day this has been !" said Agathe. 
 
 "Will you accept my carriage ?" asked Eouget. 
 
 "JSTo, brother," replied Madame Bridau. "Thank you, all 
 the same. I wish you good health !" 
 
 Eouget allowed his sister and nephew to embrace him, then 
 he went away after a cool leave-taking. 
 
 Banieh, at a word from his grandfather, had hurried off 
 to the posting-house. At eleven that evening the two Pa- 
 risians, packed into a wicker chaise with one horse ridden 
 by a postilion, left Issoudun. Adolphine and Madame 
 Hoehon had tears in their eyes; they alone regretted Agathe 
 and Joseph. 
 
 "They are gone !" cried Prangois Hoehon, going into Max's 
 room with la Eabouilleuse. 
 
 "Well, the trick is done !" said Max, weakened by fever. 
 
 "But what did you say to old Mouilleron?" asked Fran- 
 gois. 
 
 "I told him that I had almost given my assassin just cause 
 to wait for me at a street corner; that the man was quite 
 capable, if the law were at his heels, of killing me like a dog 
 before he could be caught. In consequence, I begged Mou- 
 illeron and Prangin to pretend to be hunting him down, but in 
 fact to leave the man alone, unless they wanted to see me a 
 dead man." 
 
 "I hope now. Max," said Flore, "that you will remain quiet 
 at night for some little time." 
 
 'TVell, we are quit of the Parisians at any rate," cried Max. 
 "The man who stabbed me did not imagine he was doing us 
 such good service." 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 217 
 
 Next day, with the exception of a few very quiet and re- 
 served people who shared the views of Monsieur and Madame 
 Hoehon, all the town rejoiced over the departure of the 
 Bridaus, though it was due to a deplorable mistake, as if the 
 event were a triumph of the provinces over Paris. Some of 
 Max's friends expressed themselves in hard terms. 
 
 'TVell, indeed! Did those Parisians imagine that we are 
 all idiots, and that they had only to hold out a hat for fortunes 
 to pour into it." 
 
 "They came in search of wool, and they have gone away 
 shorn, for the nephew is not to his uncle's taste." 
 
 "And they had the advice of a Paris lawyer, if you 
 please " 
 
 "Oh, ho! They had laid a plan then?" 
 
 "Why, yes, a plan to get round Pere Eouget; but the Pa- 
 risians saw that they were not equal to it, and their lawyer 
 won't laugh at the natives of le Berry " 
 
 "But it is abominable, you know !" 
 
 "That is your Parisian !" 
 
 "La Eabouilleuse saw that she was attacked, and she de- 
 fended herself " 
 
 "And quite right too !" 
 
 To every one in the town Agathe and Joseph were "Pa- 
 risians" — strangers — foreigners. They preferred Max and 
 Flore. 
 
 With what satisfaction Agathe and Joseph found them- 
 selves at home in their little lodging in the Eue Mazarine may 
 be imagined. In the course of the journey the artist had re- 
 covered his spirits, crushed for a time by the scene of his 
 arrest, and by twenty hours in prison ; but he could not rally 
 his mother. Agathe could the less get over it, because the 
 trial for military conspiracy before the Supreme Court was 
 coming on. 
 
 Philippe's conduct, in spite of the skill of an advocate rec- 
 ommended by Desroches, gave rise to suspicions unfavorable 
 to his reputation. So, as soon as Joseph had reported to Des- 
 
218 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 roches all that had occurred at Issoudun, he started forthwith, 
 accompanied by Mistigris, for the Comte de Serizy's chateau, 
 so as to hear nothing of this trial, which lasted twenty days. 
 
 It is useless here to enlarge on facts which are part of con- 
 temporary history. Whether it was that he played a part 
 dictated to him, or that he turned King's evidence, Philippe's 
 sentence was to police surveillance for five years ; and he was 
 required to set out, the very day he was released, for Autun, 
 the town assigned to him as his place of residence during 
 those five years. The sentence was a form of detention similar 
 'to that of prisoners on parole, who are confined within the 
 walls of a town. 
 
 On hearing that the Comte de Serizy, one of the peers ap- 
 pointed by the Upper Chamber to sit on the commission, was 
 employing Joseph to decorate his house at Presles, Desroches 
 craved an audience of this minister, and found him very well 
 inclined to help Joseph, whose acquaintance he happened to 
 have made. Desroches explained the pecuniary difficulties of 
 the two brothers, mentioning the good service done by their 
 father, and the way in which he had been forgotten under the 
 Restoration. 
 
 "Such injustice as this, monseigneur," said the attorney, 
 "is a permanent source of irritation and discontent. You 
 knew the father ; then put it in the power of his sons to acquire 
 a fortune." 
 
 He then briefly set forth the state of the family affairs at 
 Issoudun, craving that the all-powerful vice-president of the 
 Council would take some steps to persuade the Chief Com- 
 missioner of Police to transfer Philippe from Autun to Is- 
 soudun as a place of exile. Finally, he mentioned Philippe's 
 abject poverty, and begged a pension of sixty francs a month, 
 which the War Office might, in common decency, grant to a re- 
 tired Lieutenant-Colonel. 
 
 "I will get all you ask done," said the Count, "for it all 
 seems to me quite just." 
 
 Three days after, Desroches, armed with the necessary 
 warrants, went to fetch Philippe from the prison cell of the 
 
A BAOHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 219 
 
 Supreme Court, and took him to his own house in the Rue 
 de B6thizy. There the young attorney gave the dreadful sol- 
 dier one of those unanswerable sermons in which a lawyer 
 places things in their true light, using the crudest language to 
 epitomize the facts of his clients' conduct, to analyze their 
 ideas, and reduce them to the simplest expression, when he 
 takes enough interest in a man to preach to him. After 
 crushing the Emperor's stafE-offieer by accusing him of reck- 
 less dissipation, and of causing his mother's misfortunes and 
 the death of old Madame Descoings, he told him how matters 
 stood at Issoudun, explaining them from his own point of 
 view, and thoroughly unveiling the schemes and the character 
 of Maxence Gilet and la Rabouilleuse. The political outlaw, 
 who was gifted with keen perceptions in such matters, listened 
 far more intently to this part of Desroches' lecture than to the 
 first/ 
 
 "This being the state of affairs," said the lawyer, "you may 
 repair so much as is reparable of the mischief you have done 
 to your excellent family — since you cannot restore to life the 
 poor woman whose death lies at your door; but you alone 
 can " 
 
 "But how can I do it ?" asked Philippe. 
 
 "I have interceded for you to be quartered at Issoudun in- 
 stead of at Autun." 
 
 Philippe^s face, grown very thin, and almost sinister, fur- 
 rowed as it was by suffering and privation, was suddenly 
 lighted up by a flash of satisfaction. 
 
 "You alone, I was saying, can rescue your uncle Eouget's 
 fortune, of which, by this time, half, perhaps, has disappeared 
 in the maw of that wolf called Gilet," Desroches went on. 
 "You know all the facts; now you must act upon them. I 
 suggest no scheme; I have no ideas on the subject. Besides, 
 every plan might need modifying on the scene of action. You 
 have a very strong adversary ; the rascal is very astute, and the 
 way in which he tried to get back the pictures given to Joseph 
 by your uncle, and succeeded in casting the odium of a crime 
 on your poor brother, reveals an unscrupulous opponent. 
 
220 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 So be prudent; try to behave yourself in your own interest, 
 if you cannot otherwise control yourself. — Without saying a 
 word to Joseph, whose pride as an artist would rise in arms, 
 I sent the pictures back to Monsieur Hochon, writing to him 
 to deliver them only to you. — Maxence Gilet is brave . . ." 
 
 "So much the better," said Philippe ; "I trust to the rascal's 
 courage to enable me to succeed^, for a coward would go away 
 from Issoudun." 
 
 "Very good. ISTow, think of your mother, whose love for 
 you is worthy of worship ; and of your brother, whom you have 
 used as your milch-cow . . ." 
 
 "What ! he mentioned those trifles to you ?" cried Philippe. 
 
 "Come, come; I am a friend of the family, and I know 
 more about you than they do." 
 
 "What do you know ?" asked Philippe. 
 
 "You turned traitor to your fellow-conspirators . . ." 
 
 "I \" cried Philippe ; "I ! a staff-officer of the Emperor's ! 
 Get along ! We took in the Chamber of Peers, the lawyers, 
 the Government, and the whole blessed boiling ! The King's 
 men saw nothing but the blaze . . ." 
 
 "So much the better if it is true," replied the lawyer. "But, 
 you see, the Bourbons cannot be overthrown; they have 
 Europe on their side ; and you should try to make your peace 
 with the War Office. — Oh ! you will when you are a rich maji. 
 To grow rich, you and your brother must get hold of your 
 uncle. If you want to bring a matter requiring so much skill, 
 judgment, and patience to a good end, you have enough to 
 keep your hands full all your five years " 
 
 "No, no," interrupted Philippe, "the thing must be done 
 quickly. That Gilet may get possession of my uncle's money 
 and invest it in that woman's name, then all would be lost." 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Hochon is a shrewd, clear-sighted man. 
 Take his advice. You have your pass for the journey, your 
 place is taken by the Orleans dilgence for half-past seven, 
 your trunk is packed. — Come to dinner." 
 
 "I have not a thing but what I stand up in," said Philippe, 
 opening his wretched blue great-coat. "But I want three 
 
A BAOHELOE'S BSTABLISHMENI' 22l 
 
 things, which I would ask you to beg my friend Giroudeau, 
 Finot's uncle, to send after me — my cavalry sword, my rapier, 
 and my pistols." 
 
 "You want a good deal besides," said the lawyer with a 
 shudder, as he looked at his client. "You shall have three 
 months advanced pay to get you decent clothing." 
 
 "Hallo ! are you here, Godeschal ?" cried Philippe, recog- 
 nizing Mariette's brother in Desroches' head-clerk. 
 
 "Yes; I have been with Monsieur Desroches these two 
 months." 
 
 "And he will stay here, I hope," said Desroches, "till he 
 buys a practice." 
 
 "And Mariette ?" said Philippe, touched by the thought of 
 her. 
 
 "She is waiting for the new house to be opened." 
 
 "It would not cost her much to see me once more," said 
 Philippe. "However, as she pleases !" 
 
 After the scanty dinner, paid for by Desroches, who was giv- 
 ing his head-clerk his board, the two young lawyers saw the 
 political outlaw into the coach, and wished him good luck. 
 
 On the 3nd of November, All Soul's Day, Philippe Bridau 
 presented himself before the head of the police at Issoudun 
 to have his pass countersigned on the day of his arrival ; then, 
 by that functionary's instructions, he found a lodging in the 
 Eue de I'Avenier. 
 
 The news immediately spread through Issoudun that one 
 of the officers involved in the late conspiracy was quartered in 
 the town, and the sensation was all the greater because it was 
 understood that this officer was the brother of the painter who 
 had been so unjustly arrested. Maxence Gilet, by this time 
 quite recovered from his wound, had carried through the diffi- 
 cult business of calling in the moneys placed on mortgage 
 by Pere Rouget, and having them invested in the funds. The 
 loan of a hundred and forty thousand francs, raised by the old 
 man on his land, had produced a great sensation, for in the 
 country everything is known. On behalf of the Bridaus, 
 
222 A BACHBLOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Monsieur Hochorij shocked at this necessity, questioned old 
 Monsieur Heron, Eouget's notary, as to the object of this 
 change of investments. 
 
 "If Pere Eouget changes his mind, his heirs will owe me a 
 votive ofEering," cried Monsieur Heron. "But for me, the 
 old man would have invested the capital of jBfty thousand 
 francs a year in the name of Maxence Gilet. But I told Made- 
 moiselle Brazier that she had better be satisfied with the will, 
 or risk an action for undue influence, seeing the abundant proof 
 of their manoeuvring afforded by the transfers made in every 
 direction. To gain time I advised Maxence and his mistress 
 to let people forget this sudden change in the old boy's 
 habits." 
 
 "Ah! constitute yourself the ally and protector of the 
 Bridaus, for they are penniless," said Monsieur Hochon, who 
 could not forgive Max for the terrors he had endured when 
 fearing that his house would be pillaged. 
 
 Maxence Gilet and Flore Brazier, untouched by all mis- 
 giving, made light of the advent of old Eouget's elder nephew. 
 The moment Philippe should cause them any anxiety, they 
 knew they could transfer the securities to either of themselves 
 by making Eouget sign a power of attorney. If he should 
 alter his will, fifty thousand francs a year was a very hand- 
 some plum of consolation, especially after burdening the real 
 estate with a mortgage of a hundred and forty thousand 
 francs. 
 
 The morning after his arrival Philippe called on his uncle 
 at about ten o'clock ; he was bent on exhibiting himself in his 
 dreadful old clothes. And, indeed, when the discharged patient 
 from the hospital, the prisoner from the Luxembourg, entered 
 the sitting-room, Flore Brazier felt her heart chill at his repul- 
 sive appearance. Gilet, too, felt that shock to the mind and 
 feelings by which Nature warns us of some latent hostility or 
 looming danger. While Philippe had acquired an indescrib- 
 ably sinister expression of countenance from his late misfor- 
 tunes, his dress certainly added to the effect. The wretched 
 blue overcoat was buttoned in military style up to his chin. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 223 
 
 for melancholy reasons indeed, but it showed too plainly what 
 it was meant to hide. The edge of his trousers, fringed like 
 a pensioner's coat, revealed abject squalor. His boots left 
 damp blots of muddy water oozing from the gaping seams. 
 The gray hat the Colonel held showed a hideously greasy 
 lining. His walking-stick, a cane that had lost its varnish, 
 had stood, no doubt, in all the corners of the cafes of Paris, 
 and its battered ferrule must have dipped in many a mud- 
 heap. From a stiff velvet collar that showed the paper lining, 
 rose a head exactly like Frederick Lemaitre when made up for 
 the last act of la Vie d'un Joueur; the breakdown of a still 
 powerful man was visible in a coppery complexion that looked 
 green in patches. Such complexions are to be seen in the 
 faces of debauchees who have spent many nights at play ; their 
 eyes are surrounded by a dark, sooty ring, the eyelids vinous 
 rather than red, the brow ominous from all the ruin it betrays. 
 Philippe's cheeks were furrowed and hollow, for he had 
 scarcely recovered from his hospital treatment. His head 
 was bald, a few locks left at the back ended by his ears. The 
 pure blue of his glittering eyes had assumed a cold, steely hue. 
 
 "Good-morning, uncle," said he in a husky voice; "I am 
 your nephew, Philippe Bridau. This is how the Bourbons 
 treat a lieutenant-colonel, a veteran of the old army, a man 
 who carried the Emperor's orders at the battle of Montereau. 
 I should be ashamed if my greatcoat were to fall open, on 
 mademoiselle's account. After all, it is the rule of the game ! 
 We chose to begin it again, and we were beaten. — I am resid- 
 ing in your town by orders of the police, on full pay and 
 allowances of sixty francs a month. So the good people of 
 Issoudun need not fear that I shall raise the price of victuals. 
 — I see you are in good and fair company." 
 
 "Oh ! so you are my nephew . . ." said Jean- Jacques. 
 
 "But pray ask the Colonel to stay to breakfast," said Flore. 
 
 "ISTo, madame, thank you," replied Philippe ; "I have break- 
 fasted. Besides, I would sooner cut my hand off than ask my 
 uncle for a bit of bread or a single centime after what hap- 
 pened in this town to my brother and my mother. At the 
 
224 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 same time, I did not think it seemly that I should live in 
 Issoudun without paying my respects to him now and then. 
 But for the rest, you can do as you please," said he, holding 
 out his hand, in which Eouget placed liis for Philippe to 
 shake, "just as you please; I shall take no exception so long 
 as the honor of the Bridaus is untouched." 
 
 Gilet could watch the Lieutenant-Colonel at his leisure, 
 for Philippe avoided looking in his direction in a very pointed 
 way. Though the blood boiled in his veins, it was very im- 
 portant to Max that he should behave with that prudence of 
 great diplomates which so often resembles cowardice, and not 
 flare out like a young man ; he sat calm and cold. 
 
 "It would not be seemly," said Flore, "that you should live 
 on sixty francs a month under the very nose of your uncle 
 with forty thousand francs a year, and who has behaved so 
 handsome to Monsieur Gilet, the Captain here, his natural 
 half-brother " 
 
 "To be sure, Philippe," said the old fellow, "we must see 
 about it." 
 
 At the introduction thus affected by Flore, Philippe bowed 
 almost timidly to Gilet, who bowed too. 
 
 "Uncle, I have some pictures here to return to you. They 
 are at Monsieur Hochon's. You will, I hope, do me the 
 pleasure of coming to identify them some day or other." 
 
 Having spoken these words in a dry tone, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Philippe Bridau went away. 
 
 His visit made a deeper impression on Flore's mind, and 
 on Gilet's too, than mere dismay at the first sight of this 
 dreadful old campaigner. As soon as Philippe had slammed 
 the door with the violence of a supplanted heir, Flore and 
 Gilet hid behind the curtains to watch him as he crossed over 
 from his uncle's house to the Hochons'. 
 
 "What a blackguard !" said Flore, with a questioning glance 
 at Gilet. 
 
 "Yes, unfortunately there were some men like that in the 
 Emperor's armies ; I settled seven of them on the hulks," said 
 Gilet. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 225 
 
 "I hope that you will pick no quarrel with this one," said 
 Mademoiselle Brazier. 
 
 "That one!" retorted Max. "He is a mangy dog,— but 
 he would like a bone," he added, addressing old Rouget. "If 
 his uncle will trust my opinion, he will get rid of him with a 
 present; he will not leave you in peace. Papa Eouget." 
 
 "He smelt of horrible tobacco," said the old man. 
 
 "He smelt your money too," said Flore in a peremptory 
 tone. "My opinion is that you should decline to receive him." 
 
 "I am sure I am quite willing," said the old man. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Gritte, going into the room where the 
 Hochon family were sitting after breakfast, "here is that Mon- 
 sieur Bridau you spoke about." 
 
 Philippe entered with much politeness, in the midst of per- 
 fect silence, produced by general curiosity. Madame Hochon 
 shuddered from head to foot on beholding the author of all 
 Agathe's woes, and the cause of good old Madame Descoings' 
 death. Adolphine, too, was unpleasantly startled; Baruch 
 and Prangois looked at each other with surprise. Old Hochon 
 preserved his presence of mind, and ofEered Madame Bridau's 
 son a seat. 
 
 "I have come," said Philippe, "to recommend myself to 
 your good graces, for I have to arrange matters so as to live 
 in this town for iive years on sixty francs a month allowed me 
 by Prance." 
 
 "It can be done," said Monsieur Hochon. 
 
 Philippe talked on indifferent subjects, and conducted him- 
 self perfectly well. He spoke of Lousteau the journalist, the 
 old lady's nephew, as a perfect eagle, and her favor was com- 
 pletely won when she heard him declare that the name of 
 Lousteau would be famous. Then he did not hesitate to con- 
 fess the errors of his ways; in reply to a friendly reproof 
 administered by Madame Hochon in an undertone, he said 
 that he had thought much while in prison, and promised her 
 to be quite another man for the future. 
 
 In response to a word from Philippe, Monsieur Hochon 
 went out with him. When the miser and the soldier were on 
 
 IS 
 
226 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 the Boulevard Baron, at a spot where no one could overhear 
 them, the Colonel said : — 
 
 "Monsieur, if you will take my word for it, we had better 
 never discuss business or certain persons excepting when walk- 
 ing out in the country, or in places where we can talk with- 
 out being heard. Maitre Desroches impressed upon me how 
 great is the power of gossip in a small town. I do not wish 
 that you should be suspected of helping me by your advice, 
 though Desroches enjoined on me that I should ask it, and 
 I beg you to give it me freely. We have a powerful enemy 
 opposed to us; we must neglect no precaution that may 
 enable us to defeat him. To begin with, excuse me if I call 
 no more. A little distance between us will leave you clear 
 of any suspicion of influencing my conduct. When I require 
 to consult you, I will walk past your house at half-past nine, 
 just as you are finishing breakfast. If you see me carrying 
 my stick as we shoulder arms, that will convey to you that 
 we are to meet by chance at some spot where we may talk, and 
 which you will tell me of." 
 
 "All that seems to me the idea of a prudent man who means 
 to succeed," said the old man. 
 
 "And I shall succeed, monsieur. To begin with, can you 
 tell me of any officers of the old army living here who are not 
 allies of that Maxence Gilet, and with whom I may make 
 acquaintance ?" 
 
 "There is a Captain of the Artillery of the Guard, a Mon- 
 sieur Mignonnet, who was cadet from the Nicole Polytech- 
 nique, a man of about forty, who lives quietly; he is a man of 
 honor, and denounces Max,- whose conduct seems to him 
 unworthy of a soldier." 
 
 "Good !" said Philippe. 
 
 "There are not many officers of that stamp," Monsieur 
 Hochon went on. "I can think of no one else but a cavalry 
 captain." 
 
 "That was my corps," said Philippe. "Was he in the 
 Guards?" 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Hochon. "In 1810 Carpentier was 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 227 
 
 Quartermaster-General of the Dragoons ; he left that regiment 
 and entered the Line as second lieutenant, where he rose to 
 be captain." 
 
 "Giroudeau perhaps may know him," thought Philippe. 
 
 "Monsieur Carpentier took the place at the Mairie which 
 Maxence threw up, and he is a friend of Major Mignon- 
 net's." 
 
 "And what can I do here for my living ?" 
 
 "I believe that an Insurance Company is about to be started 
 for the Department of the Cher ; you might find employment 
 there, but it would not be more than fifty francs a month at 
 the best." 
 
 "That will do for me." 
 
 By the end of the week Philippe had a new coat, waistcoat, 
 and trousers of blue Elbeuf cloth, bought on credit for monthly 
 payments; boots too, leather gloves, and a hat. Giroudeau 
 sent him some linen from Paris, his weapons, and a letter of 
 introduction to Carpentier, who had served under the former 
 Captain of Dragoons. This letter secured to Philippe 
 Carpentier's good ofSces, and he introduced him to Mignonnet 
 as a man of the highest merit and noblest character. Philippe 
 soon won the admiration of these two worthy officers by con- 
 fiding to them some details of the conspiracy for which he had 
 been tried; it had been, as every one knows, the last attempt 
 of the old army to rebel against the Bourbons; for the case 
 of the Sergeants of la Rochelle falls under another category. 
 
 After 1832 the soldiery, who had learned a lesson from the 
 fate of the conspiracy of August 19th, 1820, and of Berton's 
 and Caron's plots, made up their mind to await the turn of 
 events. This last scheme, the younger sister of that of the 
 19th of August, was identically the same, but recomposed of 
 better elements. Like the first, it was kept absolutely secret 
 from the King's Government. The conspirators, once more 
 found out, were clever enough to reduce a really far-reaching 
 enterprise to the semblance of a mere petty barrack mutiny. 
 The north of France was to be the scene of this conspiracy, 
 in which several regiments of cavalry, artillery, and infantry 
 
228 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 were implicated. The frontier fortresses were to be all seized 
 at once by surprise. In the event of success, the treaties of 
 1815 were to be nullified by the immediate federation of 
 Belgium, which was to be torn from the Holy Alliance as the 
 outcome of a military compact among soldiers. Two thrones 
 were at once to founder in this swift whirlwind. 
 
 Of this formidable scheme planned by clever heads, with 
 which some Great Personages were mixed up, nothing came 
 but a case for the Supreme Court. Philippe Bridau con- 
 sented to screen his betters, who vanished at the moment 
 when their plans were discovered — either by some treachery 
 or by chance; and they, in their seats in the Chambers, had 
 only promised their co-operation to crown success at the very 
 heart of Government. 
 
 To relate the scheme which the confessions of the Liberals, 
 in 1830, divulged in all its depth, and in its immense rami- 
 fications, unknown to the initiated of the baser class, would 
 be to intrude on the domain of history, and would lead to too 
 long a digression. This outline will suffice to explain the 
 twofold part played by Philippe. The Emperor's staff-officer 
 was to have led an outbreak in Paris, intended merely to mask 
 the real conspiracy and to keep the Government busy at its 
 centre, while the great movement took place in the north. 
 Afterwards he was put forward to break the connection be- 
 tween the two plots by betraying only some unimportant 
 secrets; his destitute appearance and broken health were 
 admirably calculated to throw discredit and contempt on the 
 enterprise in the eyes of the authorities. This part was well 
 suited to the precarious position of this unprincipled gambler. 
 Peeling that he had one foot in each party, the wily Philippe 
 played the good apostle to the King's Government, and yet did 
 not lose the esteem of men standing high in his own party; 
 but he promised himself that at a future day he would follow 
 up the line that might offer the greater advantages. 
 
 These revelations as to the vast extent of the real con- 
 spiracy made Philippe a man of the highest importance in 
 the eyes of Carpentier and Mignonnet, for his devotedness 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 229 
 
 showed a political sense worthy of the best days of the Con- 
 vention. Thus, in a few days, the cunning Bonapartist be- 
 came the friend of these two men, whose respectability cast 
 its reflection on him. By the recommendation of Monsieur 
 Carpentier and Monsieur Mignonnet he at once got the ap- 
 pointment mentioned by Hochon in the Mutual Insurance 
 Society of the Department of the Cher. His work was to 
 keep the books, as in a tax-collector's office, to fill in printed 
 circulars with names and numbers, and send them off, and to 
 issue policies of insurance; thus he was not employed for 
 more than three hours daily. 
 
 Mignonnet and Carpentier secured the admission of this 
 visitor to Issoudun to their club, where his air and manners, 
 quite in accordance with the high opinion these two officers 
 had formed of this leader of conspiracies, gained him the 
 respect which is paid to often deceptive appearances. Philippe, 
 whose conduct was the result of much deliberation, had 
 meditated in prison on the disadvantages of a dissolute life. 
 He had not needed Desroehes' lecture to perceive the necessity 
 for conciliating the good opinion of the townspeople by honest, 
 decent, and cleanly conduct. Delighted to cast reflections on 
 Max by living as respectably as Mignonnet, he also wished to 
 lull Max by deceiving him as to his character. He meant to 
 be looked upon as a nincompoop, by affecting disinterested 
 generosity while circumventing the enemy and aiming at his 
 uncle's fortune ; whereas his mother and his brother, who were 
 really disinterested, generous, and magnanimous, had been 
 accused of cunning while acting with artless simplicity. 
 
 Philippe's greed had been fired in proportion to his uncle's 
 wealth, which Monsieur Hochon expatiated on in detail. In 
 the first private conversation he had held with this old man 
 they had fully agreed that, above all things, Philippe must not 
 rouse Max's suspjLcions ; for all would be lost if Max and Flore 
 carried off their victim, even to Bourges. 
 
 Once a week Colonel Bridau dined with Captain Mignonnet, 
 another day with Carpentier, and every Thursday with Mon- 
 sieur Hochon. He was soon invited to other houses, and by 
 
230 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 the end of three weeks had only his breakfast to pay for. He 
 never mentioned his uncle, nor la Eabouilleuse, nor Gilet, 
 unless it were to make some inquiry with reference to his 
 mother's or Joseph's stay in the town. Finally, the_ three 
 officers, the only men wearing the ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honor — Philippe having the superior decoration of the 
 rosette, which gave him a marked superiority in everybody's 
 eyes, very noticeable in a country town — would take their 
 daily walk together at the same hour before dinner, keeping 
 themselves to themselves, to use a homely phrase. 
 
 This attitude, this reserve and calm demeanor, produced 
 an excellent effect in Issoudun. Max's adherents all looked 
 upon Philippe as a sabreur, a swashbuckler, an expression 
 used by soldiers to attribute the coarsest kind of courage to 
 a superior officer, while denying him the capacity for com- 
 mand. 
 
 "He is a very respectable man," said the elder Goddet to 
 Max. 
 
 "Pooh!" replied Captain Gilet, "his behavior before the 
 Court shows Mm to be either a dupe or a spy; he is, as you 
 say, fool enough to have been the dupe of those who were play- 
 ing for high stakes." 
 
 After getting his appointment, Philippe, aware of the 
 gossip of the place, was anxious to conceal certain facts as far 
 as possible from his neighbors' knowledge; he therefore took 
 rooms in a house at the end of the Faubourg Saint-Paterne, 
 with a very large garden attached. There, in perfect secrecy, 
 he would practise sword-play with Carpentier, who had been 
 instructor in a regiment of foot before his promotion to the 
 Imperial Guard. After having thus recovered his old supe- 
 riority, Philippe learned from Carpentier certain secret tricks 
 which would enable him to meet the most accomplished oppo- 
 nent without any fear. He next took to pistol practice with Mi- 
 gnonnet and Carpentier, for amusement, as he said, but in re- 
 ality to lead Maxenee to believe that, in the event of a duel, he 
 relied on that weapon. Whenever Philippe met Gilet he ex- 
 pected him to salute, and replied by lifting the front of his 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 231 
 
 hat witH his finger in a cavalier fashion, as a colonel does to 
 a private. 
 
 Maxence Gilet never gave any sign of annoyance or dis- 
 satisfaction; he never uttered a single word on the subject at 
 la Cognette's, where he still had little suppers, though since 
 Fario's knife-thrust the nocturnal pranks were for a time 
 pretermitted. Still, at the end of a certain time, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Bridau's contempt for Major Gilet was a patent fact, 
 and discussed by some of the Knights of Idlesse who were less 
 closely attached to Maxence than were Baruch, Frangois, and 
 two or three more. It was a matter of general surprise to see 
 Max the vehement and fiery behaving so meekly. N'o one at 
 Issoudun, not even Potel or Eenard, ventured to mention so 
 delicate a matter to Gilet. Potel, really disturbed by such a 
 public misunderstanding between two officers of the old guard, 
 represented Max as quite capable of hatching some plot in 
 which the Colonel might get the worst of it. By Potel's 
 account some new pitfall might be expected, after what Max 
 had done to be rid of the mother and brother — for the Fario 
 affair was no longer a mystery. Monsieur Hochon had not 
 failed to expose Gilet's atrocious game to all the wise heads 
 of the town. Monsieur Mouilleron, too, the hero of a piece 
 of town gossip, had confidentially revealed the name of Gilet's 
 would-be murderer, if only to find out the causes of Fario's 
 hatred of Max, so as to keep justice on the alert in case of 
 further events. Thus, while discussing the Colonel's attitude 
 towards Max, and endeavoring to guess what might come of 
 this antagonism, the town regarded them by anticipation as 
 adversaries. 
 
 Philippe, who was anxiously investigating the details of his 
 brother's arrest, and the antecedent history of Gilet and la 
 Eabouilleuse, ended by forming a somewhat intimate alliance 
 with Fario, who was his neighbor. After carefully studying 
 the Spaniard, Philippe thought he might trust a man of his 
 temper. Their hatred was so absolutely in unison that Fario 
 placed himself at Philippe's service, and told him all he 
 knew of the feats of the Knights of Idlesse. Philippe, on his 
 
232 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 part, promised that, if he should succeed in obtaining such 
 influence over his uncle as Gilet now exerted, he would in- 
 demnify Fario for all his losses, and thus secured his fidelity. 
 Maxence had therefore a formidable enemy to meet — some one 
 who could talk to him, as they say in those parts. The town 
 of Issoudun, excited by rumor, foresaw a struggle between 
 these two men who, be it observed, held each other in utter 
 contempt. 
 
 One morning, towards the end of November, Philippe, meet- 
 ing Monsieur Hochon at noon in the Avenue de Frapesle, said 
 to him: 
 
 "I have discovered that your grandsons Baruch and Fran- 
 gois are the intimate allies of Maxence Gilet. The young 
 rogues take part at night in all the pranks played in the town. 
 And so, through them, Maxence knew everything that went 
 on in your house when my brother and mother were staying 
 with you." 
 
 "And what proof have you of anything so shocking ?" 
 
 "I heard them talking at night as they came out of a tavern. 
 Your two grandsons each owe Maxence a thousand crowns. 
 The villain desired the poor boys to find out what our plans 
 are. He reminded them that it was you who proposed to be- 
 siege my uncle through the priesthood, and said that no one 
 could advise me but you — for, happily, he regards me as a 
 mere fighting-cock." 
 
 "What! My grandchildren . . ." 
 
 "Watch them," said Philippe; "you will see them coming 
 home to the Place Saint-Jean at two or three in the morning, 
 as sodden as champagne-corks, and walking with Maxence." 
 
 "So that is why the rascals are so abstemious !" said Mon- 
 sieur Hochon. 
 
 "Fario told me something ef their nocturnal habits," said 
 Philippe. "But for him I should never have guessed it. — 
 My uncle is evidently oppressed by the most horrible tyranny, 
 to judge from the few words my Spaniard overheard Max 
 saying to your boys. I suspect that Max and la Eabouilleuse 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 233 
 
 have a plan for grabbing the State securities for fifty thou- 
 sand francs a year and going ofE to be married I don't know 
 where, after plucking that wing from the pigeon. It is high 
 time to find out what is going on in my uncle's house, but I 
 do not know how to set about it." 
 
 "I wiU think it over," said the old man. 
 
 Philippe and Monsieur Hochon then went opposite ways, 
 seeing other people approaching. 
 
 Never, at any period of his life, had Jean-Jacques Eouget 
 been so miserable as since his nephew Philippe's first visit. 
 Flore, in great terror, had a presentiment of some danger 
 hanging over Max. Tired of her master, and fearing that he 
 would live to a great age, as her criminal practices had so 
 little effect on him, she hit on the very simple plan of leaving 
 the place and going to Paris to be married to Maxence, after 
 extracting from Eouget the bonds bearing fifty thousand 
 francs a year. The old fellow, warned not indeed by any 
 care for his heirs, nor by personal avarice, but by his passion 
 for Flore, refused to give her the securities, pointing out that 
 he had left her everything. The unhappy man knew how 
 devotedly she loved Maxence, and he foresaw that she would 
 desert him as soon as she should be rich enough to marry. 
 When, after lavishing her tenderest coaxing, Flore found her 
 request denied, she tried severity: she never spoke to her 
 master, she sent Vedie to wait upon him, and the woman one 
 morning found the old man with his eyes red from having 
 wept all night. For a week Pere Eouget had his breakfast 
 alone, and heaven knows how ! 
 
 So, the day after his conversation with Monsieur Hochon, 
 when Philippe paid his uncle a second visit, he found him 
 much altered. Flore remained in the room near the old man, 
 on whom she shed tender glances, speaking kindly to him, 
 and playing the farce so well, that Philippe understood the 
 dangers of the situation merely from the solicitude paraded 
 for his benefit. Gilet, whose policy it was to avoid any col- 
 lision with Philippe, did not appear. After studying Pere 
 Eouget and Flore with a keen eye, the Colonel decided on a 
 bold stroke. 
 
234 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear unele," he said, rising, so as to seem 
 about to leave. 
 
 "Oh, do not go yet," cried the old man, who was basking 
 in Flore's pretended affection. "Dine with us, Philippe." 
 
 "I will, if you will first take an hour's walk with me." 
 
 "Monsieur is very ailing," said Mademoiselle Brazier. "He 
 would not go out driving just now," she added, turning to 
 the old man, and looking at him with the fixed gaze that some- 
 times quells a madman. 
 
 Philippe took Flore by the arm, made her look at him, and 
 gazed at her Just as fixedly as she had stared at her victim. 
 
 "Tell me, mademoiselle," said he, "am I to infer that my 
 uncle is not free to come for a walk alone with me." 
 
 "Of course he is, monsieur," said Flore, who could hardly 
 make any other reply. 
 
 "Well, then, come, uncle. Now, mademoiselle, give him his 
 hat and stick." 
 
 "But, as a rule, he never goes out without me. Do you, 
 monsieur ?" 
 
 "Yes, Philippe, yes ; I always want her " 
 
 '^e had better go in the carriage," said Flore. 
 
 "Yes, let us go in the carriage," cried the old man in his 
 anxiety to reconcile his two tyrants. 
 
 "Uncle, you will come for a walk, and with me, or I come 
 here no more. For the town will be in the right; you are 
 under Mademoiselle Flore Brazier's thumb. — My uncle loves 
 you, well and good," he went on, fixing a leaden eye on Flore. 
 "You do not love him— that too is quite in order. But that 
 you should make the old man miserable ? There we draw the 
 line. Those who want to inherit a fortune must earn it. — Now, 
 uncle, are you coming ?" 
 
 Philippe saw an agony of hesitancy depicted on the face of 
 the poor helpless creature, whose eyes wandered first to Flore 
 and then to his nephew. 
 
 "So that is how it stands !" said the Colonel. "Very good ! 
 Good-bye, uncle. As for you, mademoiselle — ^your servant !" 
 
 He turned round quickly as he reached the door, and again 
 detected a threatening gesture from Flore to his uncle. 
 
A BACHELOB'S ESTABLISHMENT 235 
 
 "Uncle," said he, "if you will come for a walk witH me, I 
 will meet you at your door. I am going to Monsieur Hochon 
 for ten minutes. ... If you and I do not get our walk, 
 I will back myself to send some people walking I could name." 
 
 And Philippe crossed the avenue to call on the Hoehons. 
 
 Any one can imagine the scene in the family which re- 
 sulted from Philippe's revelation to Monsieur Hochon. At 
 nine o'clock that morning old Monsieur Heron had made his 
 appearance with a bundle of papers, and found a fire in the 
 large room, lighted by the master's orders, quite against the 
 general rule. Madame Hochon, dressed at this unconscion- 
 able hour, was sitting in her armchair by the fire. The two 
 grandsons, warned by Adolphine of a storm gathering over 
 their heads since yesterday, had been ordered to stay at home. 
 Having been summoned by Gritte, they were chilled by the 
 paraphernalia of ceremony displayed by their grandparents, 
 whose cold wrath had hung over them for the past twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 "Do not rise for them," said the old man to Monsieur 
 Heron. "You see before you two wretches unworthy of for- 
 giveness." 
 
 "Oh ! grandpapa !" said Frangois. 
 
 "Silence," said the solemn old man. "I know all about 
 your life at night and your intimacy with Monsieur Maxence 
 Gilet; but you will not meet him again at la Cognette's at 
 one in the morning, for you are not to go out of this house 
 again till you set out for your respective destinations. — So 
 you ruined Fario ? You have many a time been within an ace 
 of finding yourselves in a criminal court ? — Be silent !" he ex- 
 claimed, seeing Baruch open his mouth. "You both owe 
 money to Monsieur Maxence, who for six years past has been 
 supplying you with it for your debaucheries. — Listen, now, to 
 the accounts of my guardianship; we will talk afterwards. 
 You will see from these documents whether you can play tricks 
 with me, play tricks on the family and the laws of family 
 honor by betraying the secrets of the house, and repeating 
 to Monsieur Maxence Gilet what is said and done in it ! For 
 
236 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 a thousand crowns you play the spy ! For ten thousand you 
 would no doubt commit murder! Indeed, did you not 
 almost kill Madame Bridau? for Monsieur Gilet knew full 
 well that it was Fario who had stabbed him when he accused 
 my guest Monsieur Joseph Bridau of the attempt. And 
 when that gallows-bird committed such a crime, it was because 
 he had learned from you that Madame Agathe intended to re- 
 main here. — You, my grandsons, to play the spy for such a 
 man! You, street-bullies! Did you not know that your 
 worthy chief already, in 1806, had caused the death of a poor 
 young creature? I will have no assassins or robbers in my 
 house. You will just pack up your things and go elsewhere 
 to be hanged !" 
 
 The two young men were as white and rigid as plaster 
 images. 
 
 "Begin, Monsieur Heron," said the miser to the notary. 
 
 The old lawyer read out an account of Hochon's guardian- 
 ship, whence it appeared that the entire unencumbered for- 
 tune of the two Borniche children amounted to seventy thou- 
 sand francs, the money settled on their mother ; but Monsieur 
 Hochon had lent his daughter considerable sums, and, as 
 representing the lenders, had a lien on part of his grand- 
 children's fortune. The share remaining to Baruch came to 
 twenty thousand francs. 
 
 "There, you are a rich man," said his grandfather. "Take 
 your money and walk alone ! I remain free to bestow my 
 wealth and Madame Hochon's — for she agrees with me on 
 every point in this matter — on whomsoever I please, on our 
 dear Adolphine. Yes, she shall marry a peer's son if we choose, 
 for she will have all we possess !" 
 
 "And a very fine fortune it is," added Monsieur Heron. 
 
 "Monsieur Maxence Gilet will indemnify you !" said Mad- 
 ame Hochon. 
 
 "I see myself scraping twenty-sous pieces together for such 
 a couple of ne'er-do-weels !" exclaimed Monsieur Hochon. 
 
 "Forgive me," stammered Baruch. 
 
 "Forgive me this once, and never no more" repeated the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 237 
 
 old man, mocking the voice of a child. 'Tes, and if I forgive 
 you, off you go to Monsieur Maxence to tell him what has 
 befallen you and put him on his guard. . . . No, no, my 
 little gentlemen. I shall have means of knowing how you 
 conduct yourselves. As you behave, I shall behave. It is not 
 by the good conduct of a day or of a month that I shall judge 
 you, but by that of many years. I am strong on my feet, hale 
 and hearty. I hope to live long enough yet to see which way 
 you go. — You, the capitalist," he added to Baruch, "will go to 
 Paris to study banking with Monsieur Mongenod. Woe to 
 you there if you do not walk straight : they will keep an eye 
 on you. Your money is in the hands of Mongenod & Sons; 
 here is a cheque on them for the whole sum. So now release 
 me by signing your account, which is closed by a receipt in 
 full," said he, taking the paper out of Heron's hands and giv- 
 ing it to Baruch. 
 
 "As for you, Frangois Hochon, you owe me money instead 
 of having any to receive," said the old man, addressing his 
 other grandson. "Monsieur Heron, will you read him his 
 statement ; it is clear — quite clear." 
 
 The reading took place in utter silence. 
 
 "I am sending you to Poitiers, with six hundred francs a 
 year, to study law," said his grandfather, when the notary 
 ended. "I was prepared to make life easy for you ; now you 
 must become an advocate to make your living. Ah, ha ! my 
 young rascals, for six years you have taken me in ! Well, it 
 took me Just an hour in my turn to overtake you. I have 
 seven-league boots !" 
 
 Just as old Monsieur Heron was leaving, carrying with him 
 the signed releases, Gritte announced Monsieur le Colonel 
 Philippe Bridau. Madame Hochon left the room, taking her 
 grandsons with her "to the confessional," as old Hochon ex- 
 pressed it, and to ascertain what effect this scene had had on 
 them. 
 
 Philippe and the old man went to the window and talked 
 in low tones. 
 
 "I have been considering the position of your affairs," said 
 
238 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Monsieur Hochon, looking across to the house opposite. "I 
 have just been talking them over with Monsieur Heron. The 
 bond bearing iifty thousand francs interest can only be sold 
 by the holder himself, or by his order. Now, since you came, 
 your uncle has signed no such order in any lawyer's office ; and 
 as he has not been out of Issoudun, he has signed none else- 
 where. If he gave any one a power of attorney in this place, 
 we should know of it at once ; if he did it elsewhere, we should 
 hear of it all the same, for it would have to be stamped, and 
 our good Monsieur Heron has means of information. So if 
 the old man should go out of the town, follow him, find out 
 where he has been, and we will take steps to discover what he 
 has done." 
 
 "The power has not been given," said Philippe. "They are 
 trying for it, but I hope to prevent its being executed. No, 
 it will not be executed I" cried Philippe, seeing his uncle ap- 
 pear on his doorstep. He pointed him out to Monsieur 
 Hochon, and hastily told him of the events — so trivial and so 
 important — of his visit to Eouget. "Maxence is afraid of 
 me," he added, "but he cannot keep out of my way. Mi- 
 gnonnet tells me that all the officers of the old army keep high 
 festival at Issoudun every year on the anniversary of the Em- 
 peror's coronation. Well, then, two days hence Max and I 
 must meet." 
 
 "If he can get the power of attorney by the morning of 
 the 1st of December, he will be ofE to Paris by the mail, and 
 leave the anniversary to take care of itself." 
 
 "True; then I must get hold of my uncle; but I have an 
 eye that settles idiots," said Philippe, making Monsieur 
 Hochon quail under a villainous glare. 
 
 "If they are allowing him to walk out with you, Maxence 
 has no doubt hit on some other plan for winning the game," 
 said the old miser. 
 
 "Oh! Pario is on the watch," replied Philippe, "and not 
 only he. The Spaniard discovered for me, in the neighbor- 
 hood of Vatan, one of my old soldiers to whom I once did a 
 service. No one suspects that Benjamin Bourdet is at the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 239 
 
 Spaniard's orders, and Fario has placed one of his horses 
 at Benjamin's service." 
 
 "If you were to kill the monster who perverted my grand- 
 sons, you would be really doing a good action." 
 
 "By this time, thanks to me, all Issoudun knows what 
 Monsieur Maxenee has been at by night for these six years 
 past," replied Philippe, "and tongues are wagging about him 
 pretty freely. Morally he is a ruined man." 
 
 The moment Philippe had left his uncle, Flore went to 
 Max's room to relate to him the smallest details of the visit 
 paid by this audacious nephew. 
 
 "What is to be done ?" said she. 
 
 "Before having recourse to extreme measures, which would 
 be a duel with that long corpse of a man," replied Maxenee, 
 "we must play for double or quits by a daring stroke. Let 
 the old simpleton go out with his nephew." 
 
 "But that great hound does not beat about the bush," cried 
 Flore; "he will call a spade a spade." 
 
 "Just attend to me," said Maxenee, in his most strident 
 tones. "Do you suppose that I have not listened at doors 
 and considered our position? Send to old Cognet for a con- 
 veyance and a horse, now, this minute ! All must be done in 
 five minutes. Put all that is yours into the cart, take Vedie, 
 and be off to Vatan; take the twenty thousand francs he has 
 in his desk. If I bring the old boy to Vatan, do not consent 
 to return here till he has signed the power of attorney. Then 
 I will sneak off to Paris while you come back to Issoudun. — 
 When Jean-Jacques comes in from his walk and finds that 
 you are gone, he will lose his head and want to run after you. 
 Very good — and I will talk to him then !" 
 
 While this plot was being laid, Philippe, arm in arm with 
 his uncle, had taken him for a walk on the Boulevard Baron. 
 
 "There are two great schemers at loggerheads," said old 
 Hochon to himself, watching the Colonel supporting his uncle. 
 "I am curious to see the end of this game, where the stake is 
 ninety thousand francs a year." 
 
 "My dear uncle," said Philippe, whose phraseology had 
 
240 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 some flavor of his Paris associates, "you are in love with that 
 minx, and you show devilish good taste, for she is a stunning 
 armful. Instead of cosseting you, she makes you trot round 
 like her footman — and that again is natural enough; she 
 would like to see you six feet under the daisies to marry 
 Maxence, whom she worships " 
 
 "Yes, Philippe, I know all that, but I love her all the 
 same." 
 
 "Well, I have sworn by my mother's body — and she is your 
 sister, sure enough," Philippe went on, — "to make your Ea- 
 bouilleuse as pliant as my glove, and just what she must have 
 been before that blackguard, who is unworthy ever to have 
 served in the Imperial Guard, came sponging on your house- 
 hold " 
 
 "Oh ! if you could only do that !" said the old man. 
 
 "It is easy enough," replied Philippe, cutting him short. 
 "I will kill Maxence like a dog — ^but — on one condition." 
 
 "What is that?" asked old Eouget, looking at his nephew 
 with a blank expression. 
 
 "Do not sign the power of attorney they are asking for be- 
 fore the 3rd of December; drag on only till then. Those two 
 vultures want your license to sell out your stock of fifty thou- 
 sand francs a year, solely to go and get married in Paris, and 
 there have a high time with your million." 
 
 "I am very much afraid of it," said Eouget. 
 
 "Well, then, whatever they may do to you, put ofE signing 
 it till next week." 
 
 "Yes, but when Flore talks to me she upsets me so that 
 it turns my brain. I tell you, she has a way of looking at me 
 that makes her blue eyes seem like Paradise, and I am no 
 longer my own master, particularly as there are days when 
 she leaves me in disgrace." 
 
 "Well, if she is all honey, just be satisfied to promise her 
 the document, and give me notice the day before you sign it. 
 Maxence will never be your representative — ^unless he has 
 killed me. If I kill him, you may take me to live with you 
 in his place, and I will make your beauty dance at a word or 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 241 
 
 a look. Yes, Flore shall be fond of you, or, by God, if she 
 vexes you, I will give her a hiding." 
 
 "Oh! that I would never allow. A blow to Flore would 
 fall on my heart." 
 
 "And yet it is the only way to train a woman or a horse. 
 A man who makes himself feared is loved and obeyed. This 
 is all I wanted to say in your private ear. — Good-morning, 
 gentlemen," said he to Mignonnet and Carpentier. "I am 
 taking my uncle for a little walk you see, and trying to teach 
 him ; for we live in an age when the young people are obliged 
 to educate their grandparents." 
 
 Greetings were exchanged. 
 
 "You behold in my dear uncle the results of an unfortunate 
 passion," the Colonel went on. "He is about to be despoiled 
 of his fortune and left stripped like Baba — you know to whom 
 I allude. The good man knows of the plot, but he cannot 
 make up his mind to do without his Nanna for a few days 
 to baffle her," and Philippe frankly explained the position in 
 which his uncle stood. 
 
 "You see, gentlemen," said he in conclusion, "that there 
 are not two ways of setting my uncle free. Colonel Bridau 
 must kill Major Gilet, or Major Gilet must kill Colonel 
 Bridau. The day after to-morrow is the anniversary of the 
 Emperor's coronation; I count on you so to arrange the seats 
 at the banquet that I may be opposite to Major Gilet. You 
 will, I hope, do me the honor to act as my seconds." 
 
 "We will put you in the chair and sit on each side of you. 
 Max, as vice-president, will be opposite to you," said Mignon- 
 net. 
 
 "Oh, the scoundrel will have Major Potel and Captain 
 Eenard for his seconds," said Carpentier. "In spite of all 
 that is rumored in the town about his nocturnal excursions, 
 those two capital fellows have stood by him before now; they 
 will be faithful to him " 
 
 "You see, uncle, how well the pot is simmering," said 
 Philippe. "Sign nothing before the 3rd, for, by the day after, 
 i6 
 
242 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 you shall be free, happy, adored by Flore, and rid of your 
 finance minister." 
 
 "You do not know him, nephew," exclaimed Eouget in 
 dismay. "Max has killed nine men in duels." 
 
 "Yes, but he was not robbing them of a hundred thousand 
 francs a year," replied Philippe. 
 
 "A bad conscience spoils a man's hand," said Mignonnet 
 sententiously. 
 
 "Within a few days," said Philippe, "you and la Eabouil- 
 leuse will be living together like hearts a la fleur d'orange, 
 as soon as she has got over her grief ; for she will wriggle like 
 a worm, and yelp, and melt into tears ; but let the tap run !" 
 
 The two ofBcers supported Philippe's arguments, and tried 
 their utmost to put some heart into Pere Eouget, with whom 
 they walked for about two hours. At last Philippe escorted 
 his uncle home, saying as his last word : "Come to no decision 
 without consulting me. I know what women are. I paid 
 for one more dearly than Flore will ever cost you. And she 
 taught me how to manage the fair sex for the rest of my days. 
 Women are just naughty children; they are inferior animals 
 to men; we must make them afraid of us, for our worst fate 
 is to be led by the nose by those little brutes !" 
 
 It was about two in the afternoon when the old man went 
 in. Kouski opened the door to him, in tears, or, at any rate, 
 in obedience to Maxence's orders, seeming to weep. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Jean- Jacques. 
 
 "Oh, monsieur ! madame is gone away with Vedie." 
 
 "Go-o-one ?" said the old man, in a voice of anguish. 
 
 The blow was so tremendous, that Eouget sat down on one 
 of the steps of the stairs. A moment after, he rose, looked in 
 the sitting-room, in the kitchen, went up to his own room, 
 walked through all the bedrooms, came back into the sitting- 
 room, sank into an armchair, and burst into tears. 
 
 "Where is she?" he cried, in the midst of sobs. "Where 
 is she ? Where is Max ?" 
 
 "I do not know," replied Kouski. "The Major went out 
 without saying a word." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 243 
 
 Gilet, very astutely, had thought it diplomatic to wander 
 round the town. By leaving the old man alone in his despair, 
 he made him feel how deserted he was, and so made him 
 amenable to his counsels. But to hinder Philippe from sup- 
 porting his uncle at this crisis, Max had desired Kouski to 
 let no one into the house. Flore being away, the old man had 
 neither bit nor bridle, and the situation was excessively 
 critical. 
 
 During his walk through the town Max saw himself avoided 
 by many persons who, only the day before, would have been 
 most eager to come and shake hands with him. There was a 
 general reaction against him. The feats of the Knights of 
 Idlesse were on every tongue. The story of Joseph Bridau's 
 arrest, which was now explained, cast dishonor on Max, whose 
 life and deeds had, in this one day, met with their due reward. 
 Gilet met Major Potel, who was looking for him, and who was 
 quite beside himself. 
 
 "What is wrong, Potel?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, the Imperial Guard is blackguarded all 
 through the town ! The very clerks are abusing you, and that 
 rebounds on me, and goes to my heart." 
 
 "What are they complaining of ?" asked Max. 
 
 "Of the tricks you played at night." 
 
 "As if a little amusement were forbidden " 
 
 "Oh ! that is nothing," said Potel. 
 
 Potel was an oflficer of the stamp of those who said to a 
 burgomaster, "Pooh ! if we burn your town, we will pay for 
 it!" so he was not much concerned by the pranks of the 
 Order. 
 
 "What else?" said Gilet. 
 
 "The Guard is divided against itself ! That is what breaks 
 my heart. It is Bridau who has unchained the town against 
 you. The Guard against the Guard ? No ; that is all wrong. 
 You cannot retreat. Max; you must meet Bridau. I declare 
 I longed to pick a quarrel with that great scoundrel, and settle 
 him out of hand; then these black coats would not have seen 
 the Guard against the Guard. In war I say nothing against 
 
2J4 A BAOHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 it; two brave fellows have a squabble, they fight it out, and 
 there are no counter-jumpers by to laugh them to scorn. — N"o, 
 that long rascal never was in the Guards. A man of the 
 Guard ought not to behave so before all these townsfolk 
 against another man of the Guard. Oh ! the Guard is scoffed 
 at, and at Issoudun too, where it used to be respected !" 
 
 "Come, Potel, do not fuss over nothing," said Max. "Even 
 if you should not see me at the anniversary dinner " 
 
 "What ! you are not coming to Lacroix's the day after to- 
 morrow?" cried Potel, interrupting his friend. "Why, you 
 will be called a coward; you will seem to be keeping out of 
 Bridau's way! No, no. The foot genadiers of the Guard 
 must not retreat before the dragoons of the Guard ! Arrange 
 your other business as you will, but be there !" 
 
 "One more to send to the shades?" said Max. "Come, I 
 think I can manage my business and be there too. — For," said 
 he to himself, "the power of attorney must not be made out to 
 me. As old Heron said, that would look too much like 
 robbery." 
 
 The lion, thus entangled in the net laid for him by Philippe 
 Bridau, set his teeth with an inward quiver; he avoided the 
 eye of the persons he met, and went home by the Boulevard 
 Villate, muttering as he walked. "Before I fight I will get 
 those securities," said he to himself. "If I fall, that money, 
 at any rate, shall not go to that Philippe. I will have it 
 placed in Flore's name. By my advice the child must go 
 straight to Paris ; and there, if she likes, she may marry the 
 son of some marshal who has had the sack. I will have the 
 power of attorney made out to Barueh, who will not transfer 
 the stock without my orders." 
 
 We must do Max the justice to say that he never looked 
 calmer than when his blood and brain were seething. Never 
 in any soldier were the qualities that make a great general 
 combined in a higher degree. If he had not been checked in 
 his career by being taken prisoner, the Emperor would have 
 found in this fellow a man of the sort needful to a vast enter- 
 prise. 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 245 
 
 On going into the room where the victim of all these tragi- 
 comic scenes still sat sobbing. Max inquired the cause of his 
 despair; he was greatly astonished; he knew nothing; he 
 heard, with well-acted surprise, of Flore's departure, and 
 cross-questioned Kouski to throw some light on the purpose of 
 this unaccountable journey. 
 
 "Madame just said this," said Kouski ; "I was to tell mon- 
 sieur that she had taken the twenty thousand francs in gold 
 that were in his desk, thinking that Monsieur would not 
 grudge it her as wages for these two-and-twenty years." 
 
 "As wages ?" said Eouget. 
 
 "Yes," said Kouski. " 'Oh, I shall never come back !' 
 She went away saying so to Vedie — for poor Vedie, who is 
 greatly attached to monsieur, was putting it to madame. 'Ko, 
 no,' says she. Tie has not the least affection for me ; he let his 
 nephew treat me like the scum of the earth !' and she was cry- 
 ing too — ever so !" 
 
 "What do I care for Philippe !" cried the old man, whom 
 Max was watching. "Where is Flore ? How can we find out 
 where she is ?" 
 
 "Philippe, whose advice you are so ready to take, will help 
 you," said Mazence coldly. 
 
 "Philippe?" said the old man; "what can he do with the 
 poor child? There is no one but you, my good Max, who 
 can find Flore; she will come with you; you will bring her 
 back to me." 
 
 "I do not wish to find myself in antagonism with Monsieur 
 Bridau," said Max. 
 
 "By Heaven !" cried Eouget, "if that is all — ^he has promised 
 me that he will kill you." 
 
 "Ah, ha !" laughed Gilet, "we will see " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said the old man, "find Flore; tell her 
 I will do whatever she wishes " 
 
 "She must have been seen passing by somewhere in the 
 town," said Maxence to Kouski. "Serve dinner, put everything 
 on the table, and then go from place to place, making inquiries, 
 and tell us at dessert what road Mademoiselle Brazier has 
 taken." 
 
246 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 This order soothed the poor man for a minute ; for he was 
 whimpering like a child that has lost its nurse. At this mo- 
 ment Max, whom Eouget hated as the cause of all his mis- 
 fortunes, appeared to him as an angel. A passion like 
 Eouget's for Flore is strangely like a child's. At six o'clock 
 the Pole, who had simply taken a walk, came in and announced 
 that Flore had set out for Vatan. 
 
 "Madame is gone back to her native place, that is clear," 
 said Kouski. 
 
 "Will you come to Vatan this evening ?" asked Max of the 
 old man. "The road is bad, but Kouski drives well, and you 
 will make up your quarrel better at eight o'clock this evening 
 than to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Let us be off," cried Eouget. 
 
 "Put the horse in very quietly, and try to prevent the town 
 hearing all about this foolish business, for Monsieur Eouget's 
 dignity," said Max. "Saddle my horse, and I will ride 
 ahead," he added in Kouski's ear. 
 
 Monsieur Hochon had already sent news of Mademoiselle 
 Brazier's departure to Philippe Bridau, who rose from table 
 at Monsieur Mignonnet's to hurry back to the Place Saint- 
 Jean, for he guessed at once the purpose of this skilful 
 strategy. When Philippe went to his uncle's door Kouski 
 called to him out of a first-floor window that Monsieur Eouget 
 could receive no one. 
 
 "Pario," said he to the Spaniard, who was walking in the 
 Grande Narette, "go and tell Benjamin to set out on horse- 
 back ; I must positively know where my uncle and Maxence are 
 going." 
 
 "They are putting the horse to the barouche," said Pario, 
 who had been watching Eouget's house. 
 
 "If they start for Vatan," replied Philippe, "find a second 
 horse for me, and return with Benjamin to Monsieur Mignon- 
 net's house." 
 
 "What do you purpose doing?" asked Monsieur Hochon, 
 who came out of his house on seeing Philippe and Pario on 
 the Place. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 247 
 
 "A general's skill, my dear Monsieur Hochon, consists not 
 merely in keeping a sharp lookout on the enemy's move- 
 ments, but also in guessing his intentions from his move- 
 ments, and constantly modifying his own plan as fast as the 
 foe upsets it by some unexpected tactics. Look here; if my 
 uncle and Maxence go out together in the chaise, they are 
 going to Vatan; Maxence will have promised to reconcile 
 him to More, who fugit ad salices — for this manoeuvre is 
 General Virgil's. If this is their game, I don't know what I 
 shall do. But I have the night before me, for my uncle can- 
 not sign a power of attorney at ten o'clock at night ; notaries 
 are in bed. 
 
 "If, as the pawing of a second horse suggests to me. Max is 
 going ahead to give Flore her instructions before she sees 
 my uncle — as seems necessary and probable — the rascal is 
 done for ! You wiU see how we play a return match in the 
 game of inheritance, we soldiers. And since, for this last 
 hand in the game, I need an assistant, I am going back to 
 Mignonnet's to make arrangements with my friend Carpen- 
 tier." 
 
 After shaking hands with Monsieur Hochon, Philippe went 
 down the Petite Narette to see Major Mignonnet. Ten min- 
 utes later. Monsieur Hochon saw Maxence set out at a hard 
 gallop; and being curious, as old men are, he was so much 
 interested that he remained standing at the window waiting 
 to hear the rattle of the demi-fortunej which was soon audible. 
 Eouget's impatience brought him out twenty minutes after 
 Max. Kouski, in obedience to his real master, was driving 
 slowly — at any rate, in the town. 
 
 "If they get off to Paris, all is lost !" said Monsieur Hochon 
 to himself. 
 
 At this moment a little boy from the Koman suburb came to 
 Monsieur Hochon's door; he had a letter for Baruch. The 
 old man's two grandsons, very humble since the morning, had 
 of their own accord stayed at home. Eeflecting on the future, 
 they well understood how wise they would be to humor their 
 grandparents. Baruch could not but know how great his 
 
248 A BAOHBLOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 grandfather Hochon's influence would be over his grandfather 
 and grandmother Borniche; Monsieur Hochon would not 
 fail to secure the lion's share of all their money to Adolphine 
 if his conduct should justify them in founding their hopes on 
 such a grand marriage as they had threatened him with that 
 morning. Baruch, being much richer than Prangois, had 
 much to lose; so he was in favor of complete submission, 
 making no conditions but that his debt to Max should be paid. 
 
 Prangois' prospects were entirely in his grandfather's 
 hands; he had no fortune to look for but from him, since, 
 from the account of his guardianship, the youth was his 
 debtor. So the two young men made solemn promises, their 
 repentance being stimulated by their damaged prospects, and 
 Madame Hochon had reassured them as to the money they 
 owed to Maxence. 
 
 "You have played the fool!" said she. "Eepair the mis- 
 chief by good conduct, and Monsieur Hochon will be molli- 
 fied." 
 
 Thus, when Prangois had read the letter over Baruch's . 
 shoulder, he said in his ear : 
 
 "Ask grandpapa what he thinks of it." 
 
 "Here," said Baruch, handing the letter to the old man. 
 
 "Eead it to me ; I have not got my spectacles." 
 
 "My deae Peiend, — 
 
 "I hope you will not hesitate, in the serious position in 
 yhich I am placed, to do me a service by accepting the office 
 of Monsieur Eouget's attorney. Pray be at Vatan by nine 
 o'clock to-morrow. I shall no doubt send you to Paris; but 
 be quite easy, I will give you money for the journey, and join 
 you ere long, for I am almost certain to be obliged to leave 
 Issoudun on the 3rd of December. Adieu; I rely on your 
 friendship, and you may rely on mine. 
 
 "Maxence." 
 
 "God be praised !" said Monsieur Hochon, "that idiot's for- 
 tune is safe from the clutches of those devils !" 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 249 
 
 "It must be so, since you say it," observed Madame Hoehon, 
 "and I thank God for it ; He no doubt has heard my prayers. 
 The triumph of the wicked is always brief." 
 
 "Go to Vatan, and accept the office of attorney to Monsieur 
 Eouget," said the old man to Baruch. "You will be desired 
 to transfer stock bearing fifty thousand francs interest to the 
 name of Mademoiselle Brazier. Set out for Paris, but stop 
 at Orleans, and wait till you hear from me. Tell no one 
 whatever where you put up, and go to the last inn you see in 
 the Faubourg Bannier, even if it is but a carrier's house of 
 call." 
 
 "Hey day !" cried Frangois, who had rushed to the window 
 at the sound of carriage- wheels in the Grande Narette ; "here 
 is something new! Pere Eouget and Monsieur Philippe 
 have come home together in the carriage, Benjamin and Mon- 
 sieur Carpentier following them on horseback " 
 
 "I will go across," cried Monsieur Hoehon, his curiosity 
 getting the upper hand of every other feeling. 
 
 Monsieur Hoehon found old Eouget in his room, writing the 
 - following letter from his nephew's dictation: — 
 
 "Mademoiselle, — 
 
 "If you do not set out the instant you receive this letter 
 to return to me, your conduct will show so much ingratitude 
 for all my kindness, that I shall revoke my will in your favor, 
 and leave my whole fortune to my nephew Philippe. You 
 must also understand that if Monsieur Gilet is with you at 
 Vatan, he can never again live under my roof. I intrust this 
 letter to Monsieur Carpentier to be delivered to you, and I 
 hope you will listen to his advice, for he wiU speak to you as 
 I should myself. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 
 "J.-J. Eouget/' 
 
 "Captain Carpentier and I happened to meet my uncle," 
 said Philippe to Monsieur Hoehon with bitter irony. "He 
 was so foolish as to intend going to Vatan to seek Made- 
 
250 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 moiselle Brazier and Major Gilet. I explained to my uncle 
 that he was running head foremost into a trap. Will not that 
 woman throw him over as soon as he shall have signed the 
 power of attorney she insists on to enable her to transfer to 
 herself the stock for fifty thousand francs a year ? By writing 
 this letter, will he not see her back here to-night, under his 
 roof — ^the fair deserter ! I promise I will make mademoiselle 
 as pliant as a reed for the rest of her life, if only my uncle 
 will allow me to take the place of Monsieur Gilet, who, in my 
 opinion, is certainly not in the right place here. Am I not 
 right ? — And my uncle wrings his hands !" 
 
 "My good neighbor," said Monsieur Hochon, "you have 
 taken the best means for securing peace in your house. If 
 you will listen to me, you vrill destroy your will, and then 
 you will see Flore once more all that she was in former 
 days." 
 
 "Ko ; she will never forgive me for making her so unhappy," 
 said the old man, weeping ; "she wiU never love me again." 
 
 "Yes, she will love you, and heartily, too," said Philippe. 
 "I will see to that." 
 
 "But open your eyes, man!" said Monsieur Hochon to 
 Eouget. "They only want to rob you and desert you !" 
 
 "Oh, if I were only sure of that !" said the poor creature. 
 
 "Look here. This is a letter written by Maxence to my 
 grandson Borniche," said old Hochon. "Eead it." 
 
 "The wretch !" exclaimed Carpentier, as he heard the letter 
 which Eouget read through his tears. 
 
 "Is that clear enough, uncle?" asked Philippe. "I tell 
 you, bind the minx to you by interest and you will be adored — 
 as you can be — half thread and half cotton !" 
 
 "She is too fond of Maxence; she will throw me over!" 
 said the old man piteously. 
 
 "I tell you, uncle, by the day after to-morrow either I or 
 Maxence will have ceased to leave our tracks on the streets 
 of Issoudun " 
 
 "Well," said the poor fellow, "go. Monsieur Carpentier; 
 if you promise me that she will come back, go. You are a 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 251 
 
 man to be depended on; say to her all you think fit in my 
 name." 
 
 "Captain Carpentier will whisper in her ear that I am 
 having a lady here from Paris who is a little gem of youth 
 and beauty," said Philippe, "and the minx will come back 
 as fast as she can drive." 
 
 The Captain set out, driving himself in the old chaise; 
 Benjamin accompanied him on horseback, for Kouski was not 
 to be found. Though the two officers had threatened him with 
 an action and the loss of his place, the Pole had fled to Vatan 
 on a hired horse, to warn Maxence and Flore of their ad- 
 versary's bold game. 
 
 Carpentier, who did not choose to return with la Eabouil- 
 leuse, was to ride back on Benjamin's horse when he had 
 carried out his mission. 
 
 On hearing of Kouski's desertion, Philippe said to Ben- 
 jamin : 
 
 "You can take his place here this evening. Try to climb 
 up at the back of the chaise without being seen by Flore, so 
 as to be here by the time she is." 
 
 "Things are shaping ! Daddy Hochon !" said the Colonel. 
 "There will be fun at the banquet the day after to-morrow." 
 
 "And you will settle yourself here," said the old miser. 
 
 "I have told Fario to send in all my things. I shall sleep 
 in the room that opens on to the same landing as Gilet's ; my 
 uncle agrees." 
 
 "Oh! what will come of all this?" cried the old man in 
 dismay. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Flore Brazier will come of it, within a few 
 hours, as mild as a Paschal lamb," replied Monsieur Hochon. 
 
 "God grant it !" said Jean- Jacques, drying away his tears. 
 
 "It is now seven o'clock," said Philippe. "The queen of 
 your heart will be here by about half-past eleven. You will 
 see no more of Gilet ; will you not be as happy as a Pope ? — 
 If you want me to succeed," Philippe added in Monsieur 
 Hochon's ear, "remain with us till that she-ape comes; you 
 will help me to keep the old fellow at the sticking-point ; and 
 
252 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 then, between us, we can make Mademoiselle la Eabouilleuse 
 understand where her true interests lie." 
 
 Monsieur Hochon kept Philippe company, seeing that there 
 was sense in his request; but they both had their hands full, 
 for Pere Eouget gave himself up to childish lamentations, 
 which were not cheeked by the arguments Philippe repeated 
 ten times over : 
 
 "Well, uncle, if Flore comes back and is affectionate to you, 
 you will admit that I am right. You will be made much of; 
 you will keep your income ; you will be guided for the future 
 by my advice, and all will go on like Paradise." 
 
 When at half-past eleven the sound of wheels was heard 
 in the Grande ISTarette, the question was whether the carriage 
 had returned empty or full. Eouget's face wore an expres- 
 sion of indescribable anguish, which gave way to the reaction 
 of excessive joy when, as the chaise turned to come in, he saw 
 in it the two women. 
 
 "Kouski," said Philippe, giving his hand to Flore to get 
 out, "you are dismissed from Monsieur Eouget's service. 
 You are not to sleep here to-night, so pack your things ; Ben- 
 jamin here will fill your place." 
 
 "So you are master ?" said Flore, with a sneer. 
 
 "By your leave !" retorted Philippe, holding Flore's hand as 
 in a vise. "Come with me; we have to rabouiller our hearts, 
 you and I." 
 
 Philippe led the woman, dumfounded, out a few yards on 
 to the Place Saint-Jean. 
 
 "ISTow, my beauty; the day after to-morrow Gilet will be 
 sent to the shades below by this right arm," said the officer, 
 holding it out, "or he will have caught me off my guard. If I 
 fall, you will be the mistress in my uncle's house — bene sit! 
 If I am left standing on my pegs, you have got to keep him in 
 happiness of the very first quality. Otherwise, I know plenty 
 of Eahouilleuses in Paris, prettier than you, without any in- 
 justice to you, for they are but seventeen ; they would make my 
 uncle very happy, and not fail to take my part. Begin your 
 task this very evening, for if the old man is not as lively as 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 253 
 
 a chaffinch to-morro-w, I have only one thing to say to you — 
 and mark my words — There is only one way of killing a man 
 without the law having a word to say to it, and that is by 
 fighting a duel ; but when it comes to a woman — I know three 
 ways of getting rid of her. There, my pigeon !" 
 
 All through this address Flore had been shaking like an 
 ague-patient. 
 
 "Kill Max ?" she said, looking at Philippe in the moon- 
 light. 
 
 "Now, go. See, here is my uncle . . ." 
 
 In fact, old Rouget, in spite of all that Monsieur Hochon 
 could say, had come out into the street to take Flore by the 
 hand, as a miser might have sought his treasure. He led 
 her into the house and into his room, and locked the door. 
 
 "This is good Saint-Lambert's Day, those who leave must 
 stay away," said Benjamin to the Pole. 
 
 "Oh, my master will shut all your mouths," retorted Kouski, 
 going ofE to join Max, who put up at the Hotel de la Poste. 
 
 Next day, from nine till eleven, all the women were gos- 
 siping at the house-doors. All through the town nothing was 
 talked of but the wonderful revolution carried out the day be- 
 fore in Pere Eouget's household. The upshot of these dis- 
 cussions was everywhere the same. 
 
 "What will happen between Max and Colonel Bridau at the 
 Anniversary banquet to-morrow ?" 
 
 To V6die, Philippe spoke a few words — "An annuity of six 
 hundred francs — or dismissal !" which reduced her to neutral- 
 ity for the time between two such formidable powers as 
 Philippe and Flore. 
 
 Knowing Max's life to be imperiled, Flore was sweeter to 
 old Rouget than even in the early days of their housekeeping. 
 Alas ! in love affairs, interested fraud overrides sincerity, and 
 that is why so many men pay clever beguilers so dear. La 
 Rabouilleuse remained invisible next morning till breakfast 
 time, when she came down, giving her arm to Pere Rouget. 
 The tears rose to her eyes as she saw in Max's seat the terrible 
 veteran with his gloomy blue eye and ominously calm face. 
 
254 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "What ails you, mademoiselle ?" said he, after -wishing his 
 uncle good-morning. 
 
 "What ails her, nephew, is that she cannot bear the idea of 
 your fighting Major Gilet " 
 
 "I have not the slightest wish to kill your Gilet," replied 
 Philippe. "He has only to clear out of Issoudun and ship 
 himself to America with a parcel of merchandise ; I should be 
 the first to advise you to give him some money to invest in the 
 best class of goods, and to wish him good luck ! He will make 
 a fortune, and it would be more creditable than running riot 
 through the town o' nights — ^not to mention playing the devil 
 in your house." 
 
 "Well, that is veiy_ handsome, eh!" said Kouget, turning 
 to Flore. 
 
 "To A-me-ri-ea !" said she, sobbing. 
 
 "He would be better off kicking his heels in New York than 
 tucked up in a deal box in France. But, of course, you may 
 say he is a crack hand ; he may kill me !" remarked the 
 Colonel. 
 
 '^ill you allow me to speak to him?" said Flore, in a 
 quite humble and submissive tone, to Philippe. 
 
 "Certainly, and he may come and take away all his things. 
 But I shall stay with my uncle meanwhile; for I do not 
 intend to leave the old man any more," replied Philippe. 
 
 "Vedie," called Flore, "run to the Poste, woman, and tell 
 the Major that I beg him to " 
 
 "To come and fetch away his things," said Philippe, in- 
 terrupting Flore. 
 
 "Yes, yes, Vedie. That will be the best excuse for asking 
 him to come ; I want to speak to him." 
 
 Pear so completely overpowered hatred in this woman, and 
 her dismay at meeting a strong and ruthless will, when hither- 
 to she had always met with adulation, was so great that 
 she was beginning to give way before Philippe, as poor old 
 Rouget had given way before her. She awaited with anxiety 
 Vedie's return; but Vedie came back with a positive refusal 
 from Max, who begged Mademoiselle Brazier to send all his 
 possessions to the Hotel de la Poste. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 255 
 
 "Will you let me take them to him?" she asked old 
 Eouget. 
 
 "Yes — ^but you promise to come back ?" said the old man. 
 
 "If mademoiselle is not here by mid-day, at one o'clock 
 you will give me a power of attorney to transfer your securi- 
 ties," said Philippe, looking at Flore. "Take Vedie for the 
 sake of appearances, mademoiselle. Henceforth we must 
 guard my uncle's honor." 
 
 Flore could get nothing out of Maxence. The Major, in 
 his disgust at having allowed himself to be ousted from his 
 disgraceful position before the eyes of the whole town, was too 
 proud to retreat before Philippe. La Eabouilleuse combated 
 his arguments by proposing to her lover that they should fly 
 together to America ; but Gilet, who did not want Flore with- 
 out Pere Rouget's fortune, while he would not let the woman 
 see to the bottom of his heart, persisted in saying that he 
 meant to kill Philippe. 
 
 "We have committed a stupid blunder," said he. "We ought 
 to have gone, all three of us, to spend the winter in Paris. 
 But how could we imagine from looking at that gaunt carcass 
 that things would turn out as they have done ? Events have 
 come with such a rush, that it has turned my brain. I took 
 the Colonel for a swashbuckler without two ideas; that was 
 my mistake. Since I was not sharp enough in the first in- 
 stance to double like a hare, I should be a coward now if 
 I yielded an inch to the Colonel; he has ruined me in the 
 opinion of the tovm ; only his death can rehabilitate me." 
 
 "Go to America with forty thousand francs. I will find 
 some way of getting rid of that savage ; I will join you there ; 
 it will be much wiser . . ." 
 
 "What would people think of me?" he exclaimed, stung 
 by the thought of the "jaw." "No. Besides, I have already 
 settled nine. That fellow can be no great duelist, it seems to 
 me. He left school to go into the army; he was always in 
 the wars till 1815, since that he has been traveling in America; 
 so my bull-dog can never have set foot in a fencing school, 
 while I have no match at sword-play. The cavalry sword 
 
256 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 is his arm; I shall seem magnanimous by proposing it — for I 
 shall try to make him insult me, and I will make short work 
 of him. Decidedly that is the best thing to do. Be easy; we 
 shall be masters again the day after to-morrow." 
 
 Thus with Max a foolish point of honor outweighed rational 
 policy. Flore was at home by one o'clock, and shut herself 
 into her room to cry at her ease. All that day gossip wagged 
 its tongue freely in Issoudun, for a duel between Maxence 
 and Philippe was considered inevitable. 
 
 "Ah! Monsieur Hochon," said Mignonnet, who met the 
 old man on the Boulevard Baron, where the Captain was walk- 
 ing with Carpentier, "we are very anxious, for Gilet is equally 
 strong with all weapons." 
 
 "Never mind," said the old provincial diplomate, "Philippe 
 has managed the whole business very well — and I never should 
 have believed that that long, free-and-easy rascal would have 
 succeeded so quickly. Those two fellows rolled up to meet 
 each other like two storm-clouds " 
 
 "Oh," said Carpentier, "Philippe is a very deep customer. 
 His conduct before the Supreme Court was a masterpiece of 
 skill." 
 
 "Hallo ! Captain Eenard," said a townsman, "they say that 
 wolves do not eat each other, but it seems that Max is going 
 to try a ripping match with Colonel Bridau. It will be no 
 child's play between men of the old Guard !" 
 
 "And you can laugh at it, you townsmen. Because the poor 
 fellow liked a lark at night, you owe him a grudge," said 
 Major Potel. "But Gilet is a man who could never stay in 
 such a hole as Issoudun without finding something to do." 
 
 "Well, well, gentlemen," said another, "Max and the Colonel 
 have played the game out. Was not the Colonel bound to 
 avenge his brother Joseph ? Do you remember Max's treach- 
 ery towards that poor fellow?" 
 
 "Bah! an artist!" said Eenard. 
 
 "But Pere Eouget's leavings are in the balance. They say 
 that Monsieur Gilet was about to pounce on fifty thousand 
 francs a year when the Colonel went to live under his uncle's 
 roof." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 25T 
 
 "Gilet — steal anybody's money? — Look here^ Monsieur 
 Canivet, do not say that anywhere but here, or we will make 
 you eat your words without any sauce to them." 
 
 But worthy Colonel Bridau had the good wishes of all the 
 townspeople. 
 
 On the morrow, at about four o'clock, the officers of the 
 Imperial army who resided at Issoudun, or in the neighbor- 
 hood, were walking to and fro on the market-place, in front 
 of an eating-house kept by one Lacroix, waiting for Philippe 
 Bridau. The banquet in honor of the anniversary of the 
 Coronation was fixed for five o'clock, military time. Several 
 groups were discussing Maxence's affairs and his eviction 
 from Kouget's house, for the private soldiers had also agreed 
 to hold a meeting at a tavern on the Place. Of all the ofHcers, 
 Potel and Eenard alone attempted to defend their friend. 
 
 "Is it our part to interfere in what goes on between two 
 heirs ?" said Eenard. 
 
 "Max is soft to women," remarked Potel the cynic. 
 
 "Swords will be drawn before long," said a retired sub- 
 lieutenant, who now cultivated a market-garden in the upper 
 Baltan. "Though Monsieur Maxence was a fool to go to live 
 with Pere Eouget, he would be a coward to take his dismissal 
 like a servant without asking the reason." 
 
 "Certainly," replied Mignonnet drily. "When an act of 
 folly fails, it becomes a crime." 
 
 Max, who presently joined the old Bonapartist soldiers, was 
 received with very significant silence. Potel and Eenard 
 each took an arm, and led Max a little way off to talk to him. 
 At this moment Philippe appeared in the distance in full 
 dress; he dragged his cane with an imperturbable air that 
 contrasted with the deep attention Max was obliged to give to 
 what his two last friends were saying. Philippe shook hands 
 with Mignonnet, Carpentier, and a few others. This re- 
 ception, so unlike that which Max had just met with, finally 
 dispelled from the mind of the latter certain dawnings of 
 cowardice — or, of prudence, if you please — to which Flore's en- 
 
258 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 treaties, and, above all, her affection, had given rise when 
 at last he had been left face to face with himself. 
 
 "We will fight," said he to Captain Eenard, "and to the 
 death! So talk to me no more; leave me to play my part 
 out." 
 
 After these words, spoken in a fever of excitement, the 
 three men rejoined the other groups of oflScers. Max bowed 
 first to Bridau, who returned the compliment with a very cold 
 stare. 
 
 "Come, gentlemen ; to dinner," said Major Potel. 
 
 "And to drink to the imperishable glory of the little Crop- 
 head, who is now in the paradise of the brave," cried Eenard. 
 
 All the party, feeling that the business of dinner would put 
 them in better countenance, understood the little Light-horse 
 Captain's intentions. They hurried into the long, low dining- 
 room of the Eestaurant Lacroix, of which the windows looked 
 out on the market-place. Each guest at once took his seat at 
 table, and the adversaries found themselves face to face, as 
 Philippe had requested. Several of the youth of the town, 
 especially the ex-Knights of Idlesse, somewhat uneasy as to 
 what might take place at this dinner, walked about outside, 
 discussing the critical position in which Philippe had con- 
 trived to place Maxence Gilet. They deplored the collision, 
 while admitting that a duel was necessary. 
 
 All went well till dessert, though the two fighting men kept 
 a sort of watch on each other, not far removed from uneasi- 
 ness, in spite of the apparent cheerfulness of the meal. Pend- 
 ing the quarrel, which both, no doubt, were meditating, 
 Philippe was admirably cool, and Max boisterously gay; but, 
 to the connoisseur, each was playing a part. 
 
 When dessert was on the table, Philippe said : 
 
 "Pill your glasses, my friends; I claim permission to pro- 
 pose our first toast." 
 
 "He said 'My friends' ; do not fill your glass," said Eenard 
 in Max's ear. 
 
 But Max poured out some wine. 
 
 "The Grand Army!'' cried Philippe with genuine en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
A BACHELOB'S ESTABLISHMENT 259 
 
 "The Grand Army !" was repeated like one word by every 
 voice. 
 
 At this moment in the doorway there appeared eleven 
 private soldiers, among them Benjamin and Kouski, who all 
 repeated, "The Grand Army !" 
 
 "Come in, boys ; we are going to drink to his health,^' said 
 Major Potel. 
 
 The old soldiers came in, and remained standing behind the 
 officers. 
 
 "You see, he is not really dead!" said Konski to an old 
 sergeant, who had, no doubt, been deploring the Emperor's 
 long agony, now at last ended. 
 
 "I claim the second toast," said Major Mignonnet. 
 
 A few of the dessert dishes were disturbed to keep up ap- 
 pearances. Mignonnet rose. 
 
 "To those who tried to reinstate his son !" said he. 
 
 Every one, with the exception of Maxence Gilet, lifted his 
 glass to Philippe Bridau. 
 
 "It is my turn," said Max, rising. 
 
 "Max ! — ^it is Max !" they were saying outside. Deep 
 silence reigned within and on the market-place, for Gilet's 
 temper led them to expect some provocation. 
 
 "May we all meet here again this day twelvemonth !" and 
 he bowed ironically to Philippe. 
 
 "He is coming on !" said Kouski to his neighbor. 
 
 "The Paris police did not allow you to hold such banquets 
 as this," said Major Potel to Philippe. 
 
 "Why the devil need you speak of the police to Colonel 
 Bridau?" asked Maxence Gilet insolently. 
 
 "Major Potel meant no harm on his part," said Philippe, 
 with a bitter smile. The silence was so complete that a fly 
 would have been heard if there had been any. 
 
 "The police is sufficiently afraid of me," said Philippe, "to 
 have sent me to Issoudun, a place where I have had the good 
 luck to find a few of the right old sort. But it must be con- 
 fessed that there is not much amusement to be found here. 
 For a man who was not averse to the ladies I have come off 
 
260 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 but badly. However, I will save my money for tKe pretty 
 dears — for I am not one of the men who find their fortune 
 in a feather-bed, and Mariette of the opera-house cost me no 
 end of money." 
 
 "Is it for my benefit that you say that, my dear Colonel ?" 
 said Max, firing a glance like an electric shock at Philippe. 
 
 "If the cap fits. Major Gilet." 
 
 "Colonel, my two friends here, Eenard and Potel, will call 
 to-morrow morning " 
 
 "On Mignonnet and Carpentier," interrupted Philippe, 
 waving his hand to his two neighbors. 
 
 "Now," said Max, "go on with the toasts." 
 
 Neither of the antagonists had raised his voice above the 
 ordinary tone of conversation; nothing was solemn but the 
 silence in which they were heard. 
 
 "Look here, you fellows," said Philippe, looking at the 
 privates, "remember, our affairs are no concern of the town- 
 folks ! — Not a word of what has just been said; it must re- 
 main a secret with the old Guard." 
 
 "They will obey orders. Colonel," said Eenard; "I will 
 answer for them." 
 
 "Long live the youngster ! May he reign in Prance !" cried 
 Potel. 
 
 "Death to the Englishman!" added Carpentier, and this 
 toast was enthusiastically drunk. 
 
 "Shame on Hudson Lowe !" said Captain Eenard. 
 
 The dessert went off very well, with ample libations. The 
 two antagonists regarded it as a point of honor that this duel, 
 in which an immense fortune was at stake, while the combat- 
 ants were both men so noted for their courage, should have 
 no feature in common with a vulgar quarrel. Two gentle- 
 men, in the best sense, could not have behaved better than 
 Max and Philippe. The expectations of the young men and 
 townspeople who had gathered on the market-place were dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 All the guests, as brother-soldiers, kept the secret of the 
 episode at dessert. At ten o'clock the two principals were in- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 261 
 
 formed tliat the sword was the weapon decided on. The spot 
 selected for the meeting was behind the apse of the Capuchin 
 chapel, at eight next morning. Goddet, who had been present 
 at the dinner, having formerly served as surgeon-major, had 
 been requested to attend. Whatever came of it, the seconds 
 agreed that the fighting was not to last for more than ten 
 minutes. 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night, to the Colonel's great surprise, 
 just as he was going to bed. Monsieur Hoehon brought his wife 
 over to see him. 
 
 "We know what is happening," said the old lady, her eyes 
 full of tears, "and I have come to beseech you not to go out 
 to-morrow morning without saying your prayers. Lift up 
 your soul to God." 
 
 "Yes, madame," said Philippe, to whom old Hoehon was 
 signaling from behind his wife. 
 
 "That is not all," said Agathe's godmother; "I put myself 
 in your poor mother's place, and I have deprived myself of my 
 most precious possession. Look here !" and she held out to 
 Philippe a tooth fastened to a piece of black velvet em- 
 broidered with gold, to which two ends of green ribbon were 
 sewn; after showing it to Philippe, she replaced it in a little 
 bag. "It is a relic of Saint Solange, the patron saint of le 
 Berry; I saved it at the time of the Eevolution; wear it on 
 your breast to-morrow." 
 
 "Can it protect me against a sword-stroke ?" asked Philippe. 
 
 "Yes," replied the old lady. 
 
 "Then I can no more wear that paraphernalia that I could 
 wear a breastplate," cried Agathe's son. 
 
 "What does he mean ?" asked Madame Hoehon of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 "He says it is not fair play," replied old Hoehon. 
 
 "Very well; say no more about it," said she. "I will pray 
 for you." 
 
 "Well, madame, a mouthful of prayers and a straight thrust 
 can do no harm," said the Colonel, making as though he would 
 pierce Monsieur Hoehon through the heart. 
 
262 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 The old lady insisted on kissing Philippe on the forehead. 
 Then, as she went out, she gave Benjamin ten crowns, all the 
 money she had, to induce him to sew the relic into his master's 
 trousers-pocket. Which Benjamin did, not believing in the 
 virtue of the bone — for his master, said he, had a much larger 
 one to pick with Gilet — ^but because he was bound to fulfil a 
 commission so handsomely paid for. Madame Hoehon went 
 home firmly trusting in Saint Solange. 
 
 At eight next morning, in overcast weather. Max, with his 
 two seconds and Kouski, arrived on the little plot of grass 
 which at that time surrounded the apse of the old Capuchia 
 church. There they found Philippe and his party with Ben- 
 jamin. Potel and Mignonnet measured twenty-five paces. At 
 each end of the line the two men marked a crease with a spade. 
 Neither of the combatants could retreat beyond the mark 
 under pain of cowardice; each man was to stand on his line, 
 and advance as far as he pleased, when the seconds cried 
 "Go !" 
 
 "Shall we take our coats ofE ?" said Philippe coldly to Gilet. 
 
 "By all means. Colonel," said Maxence, with the confidence 
 of an old hand. 
 
 The two men kept on only their trousers, the flesh showing 
 pink through their cambric shirts. Armed with cavalry 
 swords, carefully chosen of the same weight — about three 
 pounds, and the same length — three feet, the two men took 
 their stand, their swords pointed downwards, awaiting the 
 signal. Both were so calm, that in spite of the cold their 
 muscles quivered no more than if they had been of ^bronze. 
 Goddet, the four seconds, and the two soldiers felt an in- 
 voluntary thrill. 
 
 "They are a fine couple !" 
 
 The exclamation broke from Major Potel. 
 
 At the moment when the word "Go !" was spoken, Maxence 
 caught sight of Fario's ominous face ; he was looking at them 
 from the hole made by the Knights of the Order to put the 
 pigeons through into his store. Those eyes, from which hatred 
 and revenge shot like two showers of fiame, dazzled Max. 
 
' Pick it up! " he said, pausing in the fight 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 263 
 
 The Colonel made straight for his antagonist, putting him- 
 self on guard in such a way as to secure the advantage. 
 Experts in the art of killing know that the more skilful of two 
 swordsmen can take the upper hand, to use an expression that 
 suggests by a figure of speech the effect of the superior guard. 
 This attitude, which allows a man in some degree to see what 
 is coming, so effectually proclaims a duelist of the first class 
 that a sense of his own inferiority sank deep into Max's soul, 
 producing that flutter of mind which is the ruin of a gambler 
 when, face to face with a master-hand or a man in luck, he is 
 disconcerted, and plays worse than usual. 
 
 "Ah, the wretch !" said Max to himself. "He is more than 
 my match. I am done for !" 
 
 Max tried a circular flourish, wielding his sword with the 
 skill of a player at single stick ; he wanted to dazzle Philippe's 
 eye and strike his weapon, so as to disarm him; but at the 
 first touch he felt that the Colonel had a wrist of iron, as 
 flexible as a steel spring. Maxence had to find some other 
 stroke; and he, wretched man, wanted to think, while 
 Philippe, whose eyes sparkled more vividly than the flashing 
 steel, parried every attack as coolly as a fencing master in 
 pads in a school of arms. 
 
 Between two men, when both are so skilful as these com- 
 batants, the issue depends on a circumstance somewhat like 
 that which decides the event of the horrible kicking matches 
 among the common people, known as the Savate. The victory 
 depends on a false move, on a mistake in the distance, as 
 sudden as a lightning flash, which must be followed up in- 
 stantly. For a certain time, as short to the spectators as it 
 seems long to the adversaries, the fight consists in watchful- 
 ness, absorbing every power of mind and body, but hidden 
 under feints apparently so slow and so cautious that it might 
 be supposed that neither of the men meant business. This 
 instant, followed by a swift and decisive struggle, is agonizing 
 to the skilled beholder. Max presently parried badly, and the 
 Colonel struck the sword out of his hand. 
 
 "Pick it up !" he said, pausing in the fight. "I am not the 
 man to kill a disarmed foe." 
 
264 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 It was the sublime of ruthlessness. This generosity showed 
 such certain superiority that it was regarded as the cleverest 
 design by the lookers-on. In fact, when Max took up his 
 guard again he had lost his presence of mind, and again, of 
 course, found himself below the high guard which threatened 
 him while covering his adversary. Then he hoped to retrieve 
 his shameful defeat by a daring blow; he no longer tried to 
 guard himself; he took his sword in both hands and rushed 
 furiously on the Colonel, to wound him mortally, while allow- 
 ing himself to be killed. Though Philippe received a sword- 
 stroke which cut his forehead and part of his face, he split 
 Max's skull obliquely by a terrible swashing cut, intended to 
 break the murderous blow Max meant to deal him. These two 
 frantic cuts ended the fight in nine minutes. Fario came 
 down to feast his eyes on the sight of his enemy's death- 
 struggle, for in a man so powerful as Max the muscles twitch 
 frightfully. Philippe was carried to his uncle's house. 
 
 Thus died one of those men destined to achieve great things 
 if he had but remained in the position to which he was fitted ; 
 a man who was a spoilt child of nature, endowed with courage, 
 cool blood, and the political astuteness of a Csesar Borgia. 
 But education had not given him that loftiness of mind and 
 conduct without which no achievement is possible in any walk 
 of life. He was not regretted, for the insidious action of his 
 adversary — a more worthless creature than himself — ^had suc- 
 ceeded in lowering him in public regard. His death put an 
 end to the exploits of the Knights of Idlesse, to the great satis- 
 faction of the town of Issoudun. Philippe got into no trouble 
 in consequence of this duel, which indeed appeared to be the 
 outcome of divine vengeance, and of which the details were 
 discussed through all the neighborhood with unanimous praise 
 of the two antagonists. 
 
 "They ought to have killed each other," said Monsieur 
 Mouilleron. "That would have been a good riddance for the 
 Government." 
 
 Flore Brazier's position would have been a very embarrass- 
 ing one but for the severe illness produced by Max's death; 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 265 
 
 she had an attack on the brain, complicated by dangerous 
 inflammation, brought on by the fatigues and shocks of the 
 last three days. If she had been in her usual health, she 
 might perhaps have fled from the house where, just beneath 
 her, in Max's room and Max's bed, lay Max's murderer. For 
 three months she hovered between life and death under the 
 treatment of Monsieur Goddet, who also attended Philippe. 
 
 As soon as Philippe could hold a pen he wrote the following 
 letters : — 
 
 "To Monsieur Desroehes, Attorney-at-Law. 
 
 "I have already killed the more venomous of the two beasts, 
 not without getting a hole in my head from a sword-cut, but 
 the rascal happily struck with a dead hand. There remains 
 another viper with whom I must try to come to some under- 
 standing, for to my uncle she is as his very gizzard. I was 
 much afraid lest this Eabouilleuse, who is devilish handsome, 
 should take herself off, for my uncle would have gone after 
 her; but the shock which came upon her at an evil moment 
 has nailed her to her bed. If God were gracious to me. He 
 would take her to Himself while she repents of her sins. 
 Meanwhile, thanks to Monsieur Hochon — the old man is well 
 — I have the doctor on my side, named Goddet, a good apostle, 
 who opines that an uncle's inheritance is better placed in his 
 nephew's hands than in those of such a minx. Monsieur 
 Hochon exerts some influence over one Pichet, who has a 
 rich daughter, on whom Goddet has an eye as a wife for his 
 son; so that the thousand- franc note that has been dangled 
 before him for curing my nut has little to do with his de- 
 votion. This Goddet, formerly Surgeon-Major in the Third 
 Line Eegiment, has also been 'talked to' by my friends, two 
 brave officers, Mignonnet and Carpentier, so that he is hum- 
 bugging his other patient. 
 
 " 'There is a God after all, you see, my dear,' says he, feel- 
 ing her pulse. 'You have caused a great misfortune; you 
 must repair the mischief. The hand of God is in all this. 
 
266 'A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 (What the hand of God is made to do is incredible !) Eeligion 
 is religion; submit, be resigned; to begin with, it will calm 
 your mind, and do as much to cure you as my drugs. Above 
 all, remain here to take care of your master. And then, for- 
 give ! Forgiveness is the law of the Christian.' 
 
 "This Goddet has promised that he will keep la Eabouil- 
 leuse in bed for three months. Perhaps the woman will in- 
 sensibly become accustomed to our living under the same roof. 
 I have secured the cook on my side. The abominable old 
 thing tells her mistress that Max would have made life very 
 hard for her. She declares that she heard the dead man say 
 that if after the old man's death he should be obliged to marry 
 Flore, he did not mean to clog his career with a hussy. And 
 the cook even insinuated that Max would have found means 
 to get rid of her. 
 
 "So all is well. My uncle, by old Hochon's advice, has de- 
 stroyed his will." 
 
 "To Monsieur Giroudeau, at Mademoiselle Florentine's, Eue 
 de Vendome au Marais. 
 
 "Mt old Comeade, — Find out whether that little puss 
 Cesarine is engaged, and try to persuade her to be in readi- 
 ness to come to Issoudun as soon as I ask her. The little 
 slut must then start by return of post. She must get herself 
 up respectably, and shed everything that smacks of the side- 
 scenes ; she would have to figure in the country as the daughter 
 of a brave soldier killed on the field of honor. So the 
 primmest behavior, a school-girl fit-out, and first-class virtue, 
 — these are the order of the day. If I should need her, and if 
 she is a success, at my uncle's death she shall have fifty thou- 
 sand francs. If she is busy, explain the case to Florentine, 
 and find me, between you, some little walking lady who can 
 play the part. 
 
 "I had my scalp peeled in the duel with my fortune-grabber, 
 and it has given my eye a twist. I will tell you all about it. 
 Ah! old man, we will see good times yet, and have plenty 
 of fun with others — not the same others. If you can forward 
 
A BAOHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 267 
 
 me five hundred flimsies, I can find use for them. Ta-ta, old 
 cock. Light your pipe with this document. It must be un- 
 derstood that the officer's daughter hails from Chlteauroux, 
 and professes to be in need of help. However, I hope not to 
 be obliged to have recourse to this dangerous "ame. Ee- 
 member me to Mariette and all our friends." 
 
 Agathe, on hearing from Madame Hochon, hastened to 
 Issoudun, and was received by her brother, who gave her 
 Philippe's old room. The poor mother, whose heart was soft 
 again towards her villainous son, enjoyed a few happy days 
 while hearing the citizens of Issoudun sing the Colonel's 
 praises. 
 
 "After all, dear child," said Madame Hochon on the day 
 of Agathe's arrival, "youth must have its day. The follies of 
 soldiers who served the Emperor cannot be the same as those 
 of sons looked after by respectable fathers. If only you 
 could know all the tricks that wretch Max would play here by 
 night ! ISTow, thanks to your son, Issoudun breathes and 
 sleeps in peace. Judgment came late to Philippe, but it 
 came ; as he told us, three months' imprisonment in the Lux- 
 embourg leaves a little ballast in the brain ; in short, his con- 
 duct here has delighted Monsieur Hochon, and he has won 
 general respect. If your son can but remain a little while 
 out of the way of the temptations of Paris, he will end by 
 giving you every satisfaction." 
 
 Agathe, as she heard these comforting words, looked at her 
 godmother with eyes full of happy tears. 
 
 Philippe played the good boy to his mother; he wanted to 
 make use of her. This astute diplomatist did not want to 
 have recourse to Cesarine unless he found himself the object of 
 Plore's aversion. He understood that Flore was an admirable 
 tool, moulded by Maxence, and to his uncle a habit of life; 
 he meant to make use of her rather than of a Parisian, who 
 might have made the old man marry her. Just as Pouche 
 advised Louis XVIII. to lie between Napoleon's sheets rather 
 than to grant the Charter, Philippe would have liked to lie 
 
268 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 quietly between Gilet's sheets. Still, lie did not wish to east 
 a slur on the reputation he had just made in the province. 
 Now, to carry on Max's relations with la Eabouilleuse would 
 be as odious on his part as on the woman's. He might, with- 
 out discredit, live under his uncle's roof and at his uncle's 
 expense, in consideration of his relationship; but he could 
 have nothing to say to Flore unless she were rehabilitated. 
 In the meshes of these difficulties, the admirable plan occurred 
 to him of making la Eabouilleuse his aunt. So, with this 
 scheme unrevealed, he begged his mother to go to see the 
 woman and show her some afBection, treating her as a sister- 
 in-law. 
 
 "I confess, my dear mother," said he, with a sanctimonious 
 air, and looking at Monsieur and Madame Hochon, who had 
 come to sit with their dear Agathe, "that my uncle's way of 
 life is unseemly; he has only to legalize matters to win the re- 
 spect of the town for Mademoiselle Brazier. Would it not be 
 better for her to be Madame Eouget than the housekeeper- 
 mistress of an old bachelor ? Is it not a simpler matter to ac- 
 quire legal rights by marriage than to try to oust a family of 
 legitimate heirs ? — If you. Monsieur Hochon, or some worthy 
 priest, would speak of this affair, it would put an end to a 
 scandal that offends respectable people. Then Mademoiselle 
 Brazier would be made happy by finding herself welcomed by 
 you as a sister and by me as an aunt." 
 
 Kext day Madame Hochon and Agathe stood by Mademoi- 
 selle Flore Brazier's bedside, where they set forth to the in- 
 valid and to Eouget all Philippe's admirable sentiments. 
 The Colonel was lauded throughout the town as a man of 
 lofty and excellent character, especially in his conduct with 
 regard to Flore. For a whole month the advantages to be 
 derived from her marriage with old Eouget were impressed 
 on Flore by Pere Goddet, her doctor — a powerful influence 
 over the mind of a patient — by good Madame Hochon speak- 
 ing in behalf of religion, and by the gentle and pious Agathe. 
 
 Then when, fascinated by the idea of being Madame Eouget 
 and a respectable and respected citizen's wife, she was only 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 269 
 
 eager to be well and celebrate the wedding, it was not difficult 
 to make her understand that she could not become one of the 
 old family of Eouget by turning Philippe out of doors. 
 
 "And, after all," said old Goddet, "is it not to him that you 
 owe this high preferment? Max would never have allowed 
 you to marry Pere Eouget. And then," he whispered in her 
 ear, "if you have children, will not Max be avenged? The 
 Bridaus will get nothing." 
 
 Two months after the fatal event, in February 1833, the 
 invalid, by the advice of all about her, and implored by 
 Eouget, received Philippe, whose scar made her weep, but 
 whose manner to her, softened almost to affection, soothed her 
 greatly. By Philippe's desire he was left alone with his 
 future aunt. 
 
 "My dear girl," said the soldier, "I, from the first, have 
 advised that you should marry my uncle ; and if you consent, 
 it can be done as soon as you are recovered " 
 
 "So I am told," said she. 
 
 "It is only natural that as circumstances compelled me 
 to do you an injury, I want to do you as much good as 
 possible. A fortune, a position, and a family are worth more 
 than you have lost. At my uncle's death you would not long 
 have been that fellow's wife, for I have heard from his 
 friends that he had no happy lot in store for you ! Look here, 
 my dear child, let us understand each other. We will all 
 live happily. You are to be my aunt — nothing but my aunt. 
 
 "You must take care that my uncle does not forget me 
 in his will; on my part, you shall see how I will have you 
 provided for in the settlements. Keep calm, think it over; 
 we will speak of it again. As you see, the most sensible people, 
 all the town, advise you to abandon an illegal position; and 
 nobody objects to your seeing me. Every one understands 
 that in life sentiment must give way to interest. You will 
 be handsomer than ever on your marriage day. Your illness, 
 by leaving you pale, has given you a distinguished air. If my 
 uncle were not so desperately in love with you, on my honor," 
 said he, rising and kissing her hand, "you would be the wife of 
 Colonel Bridau." 
 
270 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Philippe went away, leaving tMs last speech in Flore's mind 
 to arouse a vague idea of revenge, which smiled on the woman, 
 who was almost happy at having seen this terrible personage 
 at her feet. Philippe had just played, in little, the scene that 
 Eiehard III. plays with the queen he has lately made a 
 widow. The upshot of the scene shows that interest wrapped 
 up in feeling strikes very deeply into the heart, and dispels 
 the most genuine grief. This is how, in private life, Nature 
 allows herself to accomplish what in works of genius is a 
 master-stroke of art ; interest is the means by which she works, 
 the genius of money. 
 
 Thus, in the beginning of April 1833, Jean-Jacques 
 Kouget's room presented the spectacle of a magnificent dinner 
 in honor of the signing of a marriage-contract between Made- 
 moiselle Plore Brazier and the old bachelor. No one was at 
 all surprised. The guests were Monsieur Heron; the four 
 witnesses — Messieurs Mignonnet, Carpentier, Hochon, and 
 the elder Goddet; the Maire and the parish priest; Agatha 
 Bridau, Madame Hochon, and her friend Madame Borniche, 
 that is to say, the two old women who were authoritative in 
 Issoudun. And the bride was keenly alive to this concession, 
 won for her by Philippe, the ladies regarding it as a mark 
 of protection needed by a penitent damsel. Flore was daz- 
 zlingly beautiful. The cure, who had for a fortnight been 
 catechizing the ignorant Eabouilleuse, was to give her next 
 morning her first Communion. 
 
 This wedding was the subject of the following article, pub- 
 lished in the Journal du Cher at Bourges, and in the Journal 
 de I'Indre at Chateauroux : — 
 
 "Issoudun. 
 "The religious movement is making progress in le Berry. 
 All the friends of the Church and respectable people in this 
 town collected yesterday to witness a ceremony, by which one 
 of the chief landowners in this part of the country put an end 
 to a scandalous state of affairs dating from a time when re- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 271 
 
 ligion was a dead letter in these parts. This issue, due to 
 the enlightened zeal of the ecclesiastics of this town, will, we 
 hope, find imitators, and put an end to these discreditable 
 unsanctified unions, begun at the most disastrous period of 
 the Eevolutionary misrule. 
 
 "One thing is noteworthy in the ease of which we write; 
 it was brought about by the urgency of a Colonel of the Im- 
 perial Army, quartered in our town by a sentence of the Su- 
 preme Court, who, by this marriage, may forfeit his uncle's 
 fortune. Such disinterestedness is rare enough in our day to 
 deserve to be made public." 
 
 Under the contract Eouget settled on Flore a sum of a 
 hundred thousand francs, and an annuity in case of widow- 
 hood of thirty thousand francs. After the wedding, which 
 was splendid, Agathe went back to Paris, the happiest of 
 mothers, and there gave to Joseph and Desroches what she 
 called the good news. 
 
 "Your son is much too deep not to lay hands on her in- 
 heritance," replied the attorney, when he had heard Madame 
 Bridau out. "And you and your poor Joseph will never have 
 a farthing of your brother's fortune." 
 
 "You will always be the same — ^you and Joseph — always 
 unjust to that poor boy," said his mother. "His conduct 
 before the Court was that of a great politician. He succeeded 
 in saving a great many heads! — Philippe's errors are the 
 outcome of want of occupation ; his great powers lie idle ; but 
 he has learned how injurious faults of conduct must be to a 
 man who wants to rise in the world, and he has ambition, I 
 am sure ; nor am I the only person who believes in his future. 
 Monsieur Hochon is firmly convinced that Philippe has a high 
 destiny." 
 
 "Oh yes," said Desroches, "if he chooses to apply his utterly 
 perverse intelligence to making a fortune he will succeed, for 
 he is capable of anything, and men of that stamp get on fast." 
 
 "And why should he not succeed by honest means?" said 
 Madame Bridau. 
 
272 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "You will see," answered Desroches. "Lucky or unlucky, 
 Philippe will always be the man of the Eue Mazarine, the 
 murderer of Madame Descoings, the household thief. But 
 be easy; he will seem perfectly honest in the eyes of the 
 world." 
 
 On the day after the marriage Philippe took Madame 
 Eouget by the arm, when his uncle had gone upstairs to dress, 
 for the couple had come down to breakfast, Flore in a wrapper, 
 and the old man in his dressing-gown. 
 
 "Aunt-in-law," said he, leading her into a window recess, 
 "you are now a member of the family. Thanks to me, the 
 lawyers have taken care of you. Now come ! no nonsense. I 
 mean to play the game with the cards on the table. I know 
 all the tricks you could play me, and I shall keep a sharper 
 eye on you than any duenna. As to what goes on in the 
 house, I shall sit there, by Heaven ! like a spider in the middle 
 of its web. — ISTow, this will show you that while you were in 
 bed, unable to move hand or foot, I could have had you turned 
 out of doors without a sou. Eead this." 
 
 And he held out to Flore the following letter : — 
 
 "Mt deae Boy, — Florentine, who has at last come out at 
 the Opera, in the new house, in a pas de trois with Mariette 
 and Tullia, has never forgotten you, any more than Florine, 
 who has finally thrown over Lousteau and taken up with 
 Nathan. These two sly-boots have found you the sweetest 
 creature in the world, a child of seventeen, as pretty as an 
 English girl,' as prim as a lady at her tricks, as cunning as 
 Desroches, as trustworthy as Godeschal; and Mariette has 
 rigged her out, and wishes you good luck. There is no 
 woman living who could hold her own against this angel, 
 concealing a demon ; she will be able to play any part, to get 
 round your uncle, and make him crazy with love. She has 
 the heavenly expression that poor Coralie had; she can cry, 
 she has a voice that would extract a thousand-franc note from 
 a heart of the hardest granite, and the hussy swigs down 
 champagne with the best of us. She is a jewel of a girl; she 
 
A BACHELOK'S ESTABLISHMENT 273 
 
 is under obligations to Mariette, and is anxious to make some 
 return. After gulping down the fortunes of two English- 
 men, one Eussian, and a Roman prince, Mademoiselle Esther 
 is just now in very low water. If you give her ten thousand 
 francs, she will be content. She said just now, 'Well, I have 
 never had a citizen to wheedle; it will be practice for me!' 
 Knot knows her well, Bixiou, des Lupeaulx, all our set, in 
 fact. If there were any fortunes left in France, she would 
 be the most famous courtesan of modern times. 
 
 "My style smacks of Nathan, Bixiou, and Finot, who are 
 playing the fool with the above-named Esther, in the most 
 splendid rooms you can imagine, which have just been ar- 
 ranged d la Florine by old Lord Dudley, Marsay's real father, 
 whom the clever little actress has quite bowled over, thanks 
 to the costume of her new part. Tullia is still with the Due 
 de Ehetore, Mariette with the Due de Maufrigneuse, so they 
 between them can get you a ticket-of-leave on the King's fete 
 day. Try to have your uncle safe under the daisies by next 
 Saint-Louis' Day, come back with the fortune, and spend 
 some of it with Esther and your old friends, who sign in a 
 body to remind you of their existence. 
 
 "Nathan, Elorinb, Bixiou, Finot, Mariette, 
 
 "FlOKENTINB, GrlROUDEAtr, TULLIA." 
 
 This letter quivered in Madame Eouget's hands in a way 
 that betrayed her agitation of mind and body. The aunt 
 dared not look at the nephew, who fixed on her a pair of eyes 
 full of terrible expression. 
 
 "I have full confidence in you," said he. "You see that 
 I have; but I must have something in return. I made you 
 my aunt in order to marry you some day. You are worth 
 quite as much as Esther to my uncle. A year hence we must 
 go to Paris, the only place where beauty can live. You will 
 enjoy yourself rather more than you do here, for it is a per- 
 petual carnival. I shall rejoin the army and be made a 
 general, and you will be a great lady. That is your future; 
 work it out.— But I must have a pledge of our alliance. 
 i8 
 
274 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Within one month you must procure for me my uncle's power 
 of attorney under the pretext of relieving you and him alike 
 of the cares of money. One month after I must have a special 
 power to transfer his stock. When once the securities are in 
 my name, we shall have an equal interest in marrying each 
 other some day. All that, my fair aunt, is plain and precise. 
 There must be no ambiguity between you and me. I may 
 marry my aunt-in-law after a year's widowhood, whereas 
 I could not marry a disreputable nobody." 
 
 He left the room without awaiting her answer. When, an 
 hour later, Vedie came in to clear away the breakfast, she 
 found her mistress pale and in a perspiration in spite of the 
 cool season. Flore was feeling like a woman who has fallen 
 to the bottom of a precipice ; she saw nothing before her but 
 blackness, and on that blackness, as in some dark beyond, 
 flitted monstrous things, indistinctly seen, and filling her 
 with terror. She felt the damp chill of these caverns. She 
 was instinctively afraid of this man, and nevertheless a voice 
 cried to her that she deserved to have him for her master. 
 She could not struggle against fate; Flore Brazier, for 
 decency's sake, had rooms in P^re Eouget's house, but 
 Madame Kouget belonged to her husband, and so was bereft 
 of the inestimable independence that a housekeeper-mistress 
 preserves. 
 
 In this dreadful position she hoped she might have a child ; 
 but in the last five years Jean-Jacques had become absolutely 
 decrepit. This marriage was to the poor old man what Louis 
 XII.'s second marriage was to him. Again, the constant 
 watchfulness of such a man as Philippe, who had nothing to 
 do, for he gave up his employment, made any kind of 
 vengeance impossible. Benjamin was an innocent but de- 
 voted spy. La Vedie quaked in Philippe's presence. Flore 
 was alone and helpless. To crown all, she was afraid of 
 death ; without knowing how Philippe could make away with 
 her, she guessed that the suspicion of a coming heir would 
 be her death-warrant; the sound of that voice, the covert flash 
 of that gambler's eye, the soldier's slightest movement — treat- 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 275 
 
 ing her as he did with the politest brutality — ^made her 
 shudder. As to the power of attorney demanded by the 
 ferocious Colonel, who was a hero in the eyes of Issoudun, 
 he had it as soon as he asked for it ; for Flore fell under his 
 dominion as Prance had fallen under that of Napoleon. 
 
 Eouget meanwhile, like a moth, whose feet are caught in 
 the burning wax of a taper, was fast wasting his remaining 
 strength; and his nephew, looking on at this lingering death, 
 was as unmoved as the diplomatists who, in 1814, watched the 
 convulsions of Imperial France. 
 
 Philippe, who had no belief in Napoleon II., then wrote 
 the following letter to the War Minister, and Mariette got it 
 delivered by the Due de Mauf rigneuse : — 
 
 "MONSEIGNEUK, — 
 
 "Napoleon no longer lives. I remained faithful to him 
 after taking the oath; but now I am at liberty to ofEer my 
 services to His Majesty. If your Excellency would con- 
 descend to explain my conduct to His Majesty, the King will 
 understand that it has conformed to the laws of honor, if not 
 to those of the realm. The King, who thought it but natural 
 that his aide-de-camp, General Eapp, should mourn for his 
 former master, will no doubt be equally indulgent to me. 
 Napoleon was my benefactor. 
 
 "I therefore entreat your Excellency to take into considera- 
 tion my request for employment with my full rank, assuring 
 you of my entire submission. This will show you, monsei- 
 gneur, that the King will find me the most faithful of his sub- 
 jects. 
 
 "Accept, I beg, the expression of respect with which I have 
 the honor to remain 
 
 "Your Excellency's 
 
 "Most obedient and most humble servant, 
 "Philippe Beidau. 
 
 "Formerly Major of Brigade in the Dragoon Guards ; Officer 
 of the Legion of Honor, under surveillance of the State 
 Police of Issoudun." 
 
276 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 With this letter was a request for permission to visit Paris 
 on urgent private affairs, supported by Mouilleron, who 
 annexed letters from the Maire, the Sous-prefet, and the 
 Superintendent of Police at Issoudun, who all spoke in praise 
 of Philippe, and dwelt on the article written on the occasion 
 of his uncle's marriage. 
 
 A fortnight later, at the time when the picture exhibition 
 was opened, Philippe received the permit he had asked for, 
 and a letter, in which the War Minister informed him that, 
 by the King's orders, he was, as a first favor, reinstated on the 
 Army List as Lieutenant-Colonel. 
 
 Philippe moved to Paris with his aunt and old Eouget, 
 whom he carried off to the Treasury three days after their 
 arrival to sign the transfer of the State bond, which thus be- 
 came his own property. The feeble old man and la Eabouil- 
 leuse were flung by their nephew into frantic dissipations 
 and the dangerous company of indefatigable actresses, jour- 
 nalists, artists, and women of equivocal character, among 
 whom Philippe had spent his youth, and where old Eouget 
 found Eabouilleuses enough to be the death of him. Girou- 
 deau undertook that Pere Eouget should die the happy death 
 made famous since, it is said, by a Marshal of France. Lolotte, 
 one of the handsomest "walking ladies" at the Opera, was 
 Eouget's bewitching assassin. The old man died after a 
 splendid supper given by Florentine ; and whether the supper 
 or Mademoiselle Lolotte finished off the old provincial, it is 
 difficult to decide. Lolotte ascribed his death to a slice of 
 paU de foie grasj and as the Strasbourg pie could make no 
 rejoinder, it is taken as proved that the good man died of in- 
 digestion. 
 
 Madame Eouget found herself in her element in this ex- 
 cessively free-and-easy society; but Philippe gave her 
 Mariette for a chaperon, and she did not allow the widow to 
 play the fool, though her mourning was lightened by some 
 flirtations. 
 
 In October 1823 Philippe, armed with a power of attorney 
 from his aunt, returned to Issoudun to wind up his uncle's 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 277 
 
 estate, a business quickly accomplished, for in March 1834 
 he was in Paris with sixteen hundred thousand francs, the 
 net value in hard cash of his deceased uncle's estate, not in- 
 clusive of the valuable pictures, which had never been moved 
 from old Hochon's keeping. Philippe banked his money 
 with Mongenod & Son, the house in which young Baruch 
 Borniche had found a berth, and of whose solvency and hon- 
 esty old Hochon had given a satisfactory report. This firm 
 took the sixteen hundred thousand francs at six per cent per 
 annum, on condition of three months' notice being given 
 previous to withdrawal of the capital. 
 
 One fine day Philippe went to request his mother's presence 
 at his marriage, the witnesses being Giroudeau, Finot, 
 Nathan, and Bixiou. By the marriage contract Madame 
 Kouget, widow, settled all her possessions on her husband 
 in the event of her dying childless.^ There were no letters of 
 formal announcement, no party, no display, for Philippe had 
 his own schemes ; he took rooms for his wife in the Eue Saint- 
 Georges, an apartment sold ready furnished by Lolotte, which 
 Madame Bridau the younger thought delightful, but where 
 her husband rarely set foot. 
 
 Without letting anybody know what he was doing, Philippe 
 purchased for two hundred and fifty thousand francs a house 
 in the Eue de Clichy, at a time when no one suspected the 
 value which property in that part of the town would attain — 
 a magnificent mansion, for which he paid fifty thousand 
 crowns down, the rest to be paid off in two years. He spent 
 enormous sums on the interior and in furnishing it, devoting 
 to this his whole income for two years. The splendid pictures, 
 cleaned and restored, and valued at three hundred thousand 
 francs, were displayed to full advantage. 
 
 The accession of Charles X. had raised to greater favor 
 than ever the Due de Chaulieu's family; and his eldest son, 
 the Due de Ehetore, often met Philippe at TuUia's. In the 
 person of Charles X. the elder branch of the Bourbons sup- 
 posed itself to be definitely seated on the throne, and it fol- 
 lowed the advice given at an earlier time by Marshal Gouvion 
 
278 A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Saint-Cyr to secure the attachment of the soldiers of the Em- 
 pire. Philippe, who, no doubt, gave valuable information 
 as to the conspiracies of 1820 and 1823, was appointed Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel in the Due de Maufrigneuse's regiment. This 
 delightful grand gentleman felt himself under an obligation 
 to help the man who had robbed him of Mariette. The corps 
 de ballet were not without some knowledge of this promotion. 
 
 It had, moreover, been decided by the wisdom of Charles 
 X.'s privy council that His Eoyal Highness the Dauphin 
 should assume a slight tinge of Liberalism. Hence the great 
 Philippe, now the satellite of the Due de Maufrigneuse, was 
 presented not only to the Dauphin, but also to the Dauphiness, 
 who was not ill disposed towards blunt manners and military 
 men with a character for fidelity. Philippe quite appreciated 
 the Dauphin's part, and he took advantage of the first per- 
 formance of this assumed Liberalism to get himself appointed 
 aide-de-camp to a marshal in favor at Court. 
 
 In January 1837 Philippe, transferred to the King's Body- 
 guard as Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment to which the 
 Due de Maufrigneuse had been appointed, solicited the honor 
 of being allowed to assume a title. Under the Eestoration 
 ennoblement became almost a right of the commoners who 
 were promoted to the Guards. Colonel Bridau, having just 
 bought the estate of Brambourg, craved permission to entail 
 the property with the title of Count. This favor he obtained 
 by taking advantage of his connections in the highest circles, 
 appearing with a gorgeous display of carriages and liveries, 
 in short, with the air and style of a lord. 
 
 No sooner did Philippe, Lieutenant-Colonel of the most 
 dashing cavalry regiment of the Guards, see his name in the 
 Army List as Comte de Brambourg than he took to hanging 
 about the house of Lieutenant-General the Comte de Sou- 
 langes, and paying attention to his younger daughter. Made- 
 moiselle Amelie de Soulanges. The insatiable Philippe, sup- 
 ported by the mistresses of the most influential men, next 
 craved the honor of being made aide-de-camp to Moneeigneur 
 the Dauphin. He had the audacity to say to the Dauphiness 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 279 
 
 that "an old ofHcer, wounded in many a battle and familiar 
 ■with war on a grand scale, might on occasion be of use to His 
 Boyal Highness." 
 
 Philippe, who could take the tone of any servility, was, 
 in these high circles, exactly what he ought to be, just as he 
 had been a second Mignonnet at Issoudun. He lived in the 
 greatest style, gave splendid entertainments and dinners, 
 admitting to his house none of his old friends whose position 
 might compromise his prospects. Thus he was pitiless to the 
 companions of his debaucheries. He refused point-blank 
 when Bixiou asked him to speak a word in favor of Giroudeau, 
 who wished to rejoin the service when Florentine threw him 
 over. 
 
 "He cannot behave himself," said Philippe. 
 
 "So that was what he said of me !" cried Giroudeau. "And 
 I relieved him of his uncle !" 
 
 "We will serve him out," said Bixiou. 
 
 Philippe wanted to marry Mademoiselle Amelie de 
 Soulanges, to be made a general, and to have the command 
 of a regiment of the Bodyguard. He asked for so much 
 that, to keep him quiet, he was made Commander of the 
 Legion of Honor, and of the Order of Saint-Louis. 
 
 One evening Agathe and Joseph, walking homewards in the 
 rain, saw Philippe drive past in uniform, covered with Orders ; 
 he was lounging in a corner of his handsome coupe, lined with 
 yellow silk, and with a coat-of-arms on the panel surmounted 
 by a Count's coronet, on his way to an entertainment at the 
 Elysee-Bourbon ; he splashed his mother and brother, recog- 
 nizing them with a patronizing nod. 
 
 "He is going it ; he is going it ! the old rogue !" said Joseph 
 to his mother. "At the same time he might send us some- 
 thing better than the mud in our faces." 
 
 "He is in such a splendid position, so far above us, that 
 we must not owe him a grudge if he forgets us," said Madame 
 Bridau. "To climb so steep a hill, he must have so many 
 obligations to fulfil, so many sacrifices to make, that he may 
 well be unable to come to see us even while thinking of us." 
 
280 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "My dear fellow/' said the Due de Maufrigneuse one even- 
 ing to the new Comte de Brambourg. "I am sure that your 
 proposal will be taken in good part; but to marry Made- 
 moiselle Amelie de Soulanges you must be a free man. What 
 have you done with your wife ?" 
 
 "My wife ?" said Philippe, with a gesture, a look, an accent 
 such as Frederick Lemaitre afterwards conceived of in one of 
 his most terrible parts. "Alas! I have the melancholy cer- 
 tainty of losing her. She has not a week to live. Ah ! my 
 dear Duke, you do not know what it is to have married be- 
 neath you ! A woman who had been a cook, who has the 
 tastes of a cook, and who brings dishonor on me, — I am much 
 to be pitied. But I have had the honor of explaining the 
 situation to Madame the Dauphiness ; the necessity arose some 
 time since for saving a million of francs, which my uncle had 
 left by will to this creature. Happily, my wife has taken to 
 drams ; at her death I become the possessor of a million in the 
 hands of Messrs. Mongenod; I have more than thirty thou- 
 sand francs in the five per cents; and my estate — entailed — 
 which brings in forty thousand francs a year. If, as every- 
 thing leads us to suppose. Monsieur de Soulanges receives 
 a Marshal's baton, I, with the title of Comte de Brambourg, 
 am in a position to become general and a peer of Prance. 
 It will be a fitting retirement for an aide-de-camp to the 
 Dauphin." 
 
 After the Salon of 1823 the painter to the King, one of the 
 kindest-hearted men of his day, had obtained for Joseph's 
 mother a lottery-ticket office in the neighborhood of the Halle. 
 Subsequently Agathe was fortunate enough to be able to 
 exchange, without paying any premium, with the holder of a 
 similar office in the Eue de Seine, in a house where Joseph 
 took a studio. The widow now, in her turn, employed a clerk, 
 and cost her son nothing. Still, in 1838, though at the head 
 of a very good lottery office, which she owed to Joseph's fame, 
 Madame Bridau did not yet believe in his glory — which, in- 
 deed, was hotly disputed, as all true glory is. The great painter. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 281 
 
 always struggling with his passions, wanted much; he could 
 not earn enough to keep up the luxury required by his posi- 
 tion in society, and by his distinguished eminence in the 
 younger school. Though he had warm adherents in his 
 friends of the Art Society, and in Mademoiselle des Touches, 
 he did not appeal to the Philistine. This Creature, in whose 
 hands the money lies nowadays, never loosens his purse- 
 strings for talent that can be questioned ; and Joseph saw the 
 classicists and the Institute arrayed against him, with critics 
 who waited on these two powers. Besides, the Comte de 
 Brambourg affected amazement when any one spoke to him of 
 Joseph. So the courageous artist, though upheld by Gros and 
 Gerard, who secured him the Cross during the Salon of 1837, 
 had few commissions. If the Minister of the Interior and the 
 Eoyal Establishments were little inclined to purchase his 
 large pictures, the dealers and wealthy foreigners still less 
 cared to be burdened with them. Besides, as we know, 
 Joseph allows himself to be rather too much led away by 
 fancy, and the result is an inequality of work, of which his 
 enemies take advantage to dispute his talent. 
 
 "Painting on the heroic scale is in a bad way," said his 
 friend Pierre Grassou, as he turned out daubs to the taste of 
 the Philistines, whose rooms were ill suited to large canvases. 
 
 '•'What you want is a cathedral to decorate," Schinner 
 would say, "then you would reduce criticism to silence by 
 some great work." 
 
 All these speeches, which frightened good Agathe, con- 
 firmed her first opinion of Joseph and Philippe. Pacts were 
 on the side of the woman, who was still so entirely provincial ; 
 was not Philippe, her favorite child, at last the great man of 
 the family ? She looked on the sins of the boy's youth as the 
 aberrations of genius. Joseph, whose efforts left her un- 
 moved — for she saw too much of them in their early state 
 to admire them when finished — seemed to her no further 
 forward in 1828 than in 1816. Poor Joseph owed money; 
 he was crushed under the weight of debt; he had taken up a 
 thankless calling that brought no returns. In short, Agathe 
 
i82 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 could not imagine why an Order should have been bestowed 
 on Joseph. 
 
 Philippe, with strength enough never to go to the gaming 
 table, and invited to Madame's entertainments, the splendid 
 Colonel, who at reviews and in processions rode past in a 
 gorgeous uniform, gaudy with two red ribbons, realized 
 Agathe's maternal dreams. One day at a public ceremonial 
 Philippe had wiped out the odious picture of his poverty on 
 the Quai de Tfieole, by passing his mother on the same spot, 
 preceding the Dauphin, with his aigrette, and his shako, and 
 his pelisse splendid with gold-lace and fur. While to the 
 artist she had become a sort of devoted Grey Sister, Agathe 
 no longer felt herself a mother excepting to the dashing aide- 
 de-camp to His Eoyal Highness Monseigneur the Dauphin. 
 In her pride of Philippe she could have believed that she 
 owed her easier means to him, forgetting that the lottery 
 office had come to her through Joseph. 
 
 One day Agathe saw her poor artist so much worried by the 
 heavy total of his colorman's bill, that, while cursing the arts, 
 she longed to release him from his debts. The poor woman, 
 who kept house on the proceeds of her lottery tickets, took 
 good care never to ask Joseph for a farthing. Thus, she had no 
 money; but she trusted to Philippe's kind heart and purse. 
 For three years, from day to day, she had expected a visit 
 from her son; she pictured him bringing her an enormous 
 sum, and rejoiced in advance over the delight of giving it to 
 Joseph, whose opinion of Philippe remained unchanged, 
 as did that of Desroehes. 
 
 So, without Joseph's knowledge, she wrote to Philippe the 
 following letter : — 
 
 "To Monsieur le Comte de Brambourg. 
 
 "My dear Philippe, — For five years yon have never given 
 your mother the smallest thought. That is not kind. You 
 ought to remember the past, if only for the sake of your ex- 
 cellent brother. Joseph now is in need of money, while you 
 are swimming in opulence; he works, while you rush from 
 
A BACHELOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 283 
 
 party to party. You possess the whole of my brother's for- 
 tune. In short, from what little Borniche tells me, you have 
 two hundred thousand francs a year. Well, then, come and 
 see Joseph. In the course of your visit leave in the death's- 
 head a score of thousand-franc notes. You owe us that much, 
 Philippe; your brother will nevertheless feel himself much 
 obliged to you, to say nothing of the pleasure you will give 
 your mother. 
 
 "Agathb Bbidau nee Eouget." 
 
 Two days after the maid brought up to the studio, where 
 poor Agathe had just breakfasted with Joseph, the following 
 dreadful note : — 
 
 "My deae Mother, — ^I cannot marry Mademoiselle 
 Amelie de Soulanges with a handful of walnut shells, when 
 behind the name of Comte de Brambourg there lies that of 
 your son 
 
 "Philippe Bkidau." 
 
 As she sank almost fainting on the studio sofa, Agathe 
 dropped the letter. The slight rustle of the paper as it fell, 
 and Agathe's low but terrible cry, startled Joseph, who was 
 painting away vehemently on a sketch. He looked round 
 the edge of his canvas to see what was happening. Seeing 
 his mother lying there, the painter put down his palette and 
 brushes, and flew to raise her, almost a corpse. He took 
 Agathe in his arms, carried her on to the bed in her room, 
 and sent the maid to fetch his friend Bianchon. As soon as 
 Joseph could question his mother, she confessed her letter to 
 Philippe and his reply to her. The artist went to pick up 
 the note, of which the concise brutality had broken the frail 
 heart of the poor mother by overturning the towering edifice 
 raised by her maternal preference. 
 
 Joseph came back to his mother's bedside, and had the wit 
 to be silent. He never mentioned his brother during the 
 three weeks while his poor mother lay, not ill indeed, but 
 
284 A BACHBLOE'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 dying. Indeed, Bianchon, who came every day and attended 
 the poor woman with the devotion of a true friend, told 
 Joseph the truth on the first day. 
 
 ''At her age," said he, "and in the position in which your 
 mother will find herself, we must only try to make death as 
 easy to her as possible." 
 
 Agathe, indeed, felt herself so surely called to God, that 
 on the very next day she begged the religious care of old 
 Abbe Loraux, her spiritual director for two-and-twenty years. 
 As soon as she was alone with him, after pouring all her 
 sorrow into his heart, she repeated what she had said to her 
 godmother, what she was constantly saying : 
 
 "How have I angered God? Do I not love Him with all 
 my soul ? Have I not walked in the way of salvation ? What 
 is my sin? And if I am so guilty of an error I am un- 
 conscious of, have I time now to repair it ?" 
 
 "No," said the old man in a mild voice. "Alas ! your life 
 seems blameless, and your soul unspotted ; but God's eye, poor 
 suffering woman, is more penetrating than that of His min- 
 isters. I myself see clearly now, but too late — for you have 
 blinded me till now." 
 
 As she heard this speech, uttered by lips from which hither- 
 to no words but those of peace and honey had fallen for her, 
 Agathe sat up in bed, with wide eyes full of terror and 
 distress. 
 
 "Speak, speak !" she cried. 
 
 "Be comforted," said the old priest. "From the manner 
 of your punishment you may look for forgiveness. God is 
 severe in this world only on His chosen few. Woe unto those 
 whose misdeeds find favoring chances; they will be kneaded 
 again in human form till they in their turn are sternly 
 punished for mere mistakes and ripen into food for heaven. 
 Your life, my daughter, has been one long mistake. You 
 fell into the pit you dug for yourself, for we always fail on the 
 side we ourselves have weakened. You gave all your heart 
 to a wretch in whom you saw your glory, and you have mis- 
 prized the child who is your true glory. Your injustice has 
 
A BACHELOR^S ESTABLISHMENT 285 
 
 been so deep that you have not observed this striking contrast ; 
 your means of living even have come to you from Joseph, while 
 your other son has constantly plundered you. Your poorer 
 son, who loves you without the reward of equal tenderness, 
 gives you your daily bread ; while the rich man, who has never 
 cared for you, and who scorns you, longs for your death." 
 
 "Oh ! for that matter " she put in. 
 
 "Yes," the priest went on, "your humble condition in- 
 terferes with the schemes of his pride. — As a mother, this is 
 your crime ! As a woman, your sufferings and sorrows 
 promise you the joy and peace and the Lord. Your son 
 Joseph is so noble, that his affection has never been dimin- 
 ished by the injustice of your favoritism; love him as he 
 deserves. Give him your whole heart during these last days. 
 And pray for him — I will go and pray for you." 
 
 The mother's eyes, unsealed by so firm a hand, looked back 
 with a retrospective glance on the whole of her past life. En- 
 lightened by this sudden flash, she perceived the involuntary 
 wrong she had done, and melted into tears. The old priest 
 was so much moved by the spectacle of an erring and repent- 
 ant creature, sinning solely by ignorance, that he left the room 
 not to betray his compassion. 
 
 About two hours after the confessor's departure, Joseph 
 came into his mother's room. He had been to a friend to 
 borrow the necessary money to pay his most pressing debts, 
 and he crept in on tiptoe, believing that his mother was asleep. 
 He then sat down in an armchair, without being seen by the 
 sick woman. 
 
 A sob, broken by the words, "Will he ever forgive me?" 
 made Joseph start up with the cold perspiration down his 
 back, for he thought his mother was in the delirium that pre- 
 cedes death. 
 
 "What is the matter, mother?" he cried, terrified to see 
 her eyes red with weeping and her woe-stricken face. 
 
 "Oh, Joseph ! can you forgive me, my child ?" cried she. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" asked the artist. 
 
 "I have not loved you as you deserved " 
 
286 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "What a preposterous idea!" cried he. "You have not 
 
 loved me ? Have we not lived together these seven years ? 
 
 Have you not kept house for me for seven years? Do I not 
 see you every day ? Do I not hear your voice ? Are you not 
 the gentle and indulgent sharer of my poverty ? — You do not 
 understand painting! Well, but that is not to be taught. 
 And only yesterday I was saying to Grassou, 'The thing that 
 comforts me in all my struggles is that I have such a good 
 mother; she is just what an artist's wife ought to be; she takes 
 care of everything; she looks after all my creature comforts 
 without making any fuss ' " 
 
 "No, Joseph, no. You have loved me, and I have never 
 returned you tenderness for tenderness. Oh ! how I wish I 
 might live ! . . . Give me your hand." 
 
 Agathe took her son's hand, kissed and held it to her heart, 
 gazing at him for a long time, her blue eyes radiant with the 
 affection she had hitherto always kept for Philippe. The 
 painter, who had studied expression, was so struck by the 
 change, and saw so plainly that his mother's heart had opened 
 to him, that he put his arms round her and held her clasped 
 for some seconds, saying like a crazy creature, "Oh, mother, 
 mother !" 
 
 "Ah, I feel I am forgiven!" said she. "God must surely 
 ratify a son's forgiveness of his mother." 
 
 "You must keep calm; do not worry yourself. It is all 
 over now. I feel that I am enough loved at this moment 
 for all the past," cried Joseph, laying his mother gently on the 
 pillows. 
 
 During a fortnight, while life and death were contending 
 for the saintly creature, she had for Joseph such looks, such 
 impulses of soul and expressions of gesture, as revealed love 
 so perfect that a whole life seemed contained in each outburst. 
 The mother now thought only of her son; she counted herself 
 as nothing, and, upheld by love, no longer felt her sufferings. 
 She made artless speeches like a child's. D'Arthez, Michel 
 Chrestien, Fulgence Eidal, Pierre Grassou, and Bianchon 
 came to keep Joseph company, and often held discussions in 
 an undertone in the sick woman's room. 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 287 
 
 "Oh! how I wish I knew what was meant by color 1" she 
 exclaimed one evening when she heard them talking about a 
 picture. 
 
 Joseph's conduct on his part was sublime towards his 
 mother; he scarcely left her room; he cherished Agathe in his 
 heart; he responded to her tenderness with equal tenderness. 
 It was to the painter's friends one of those beautiful spectacles 
 which can never be forgotten. These men, who all were 
 examples of the union of real talent and noble character, were 
 for Joseph and his mother all that they ought to be — angels 
 who prayed with him and wept with him — not that they said 
 prayers or shed tears, but they were one with him in thought 
 and act. Joseph, an artist as noble in feeling as in gifts, read 
 in certain of his mother's looks a longing hidden deep in her 
 heart; and he said one day to d'Arthez, "She was too fond of 
 that robber Philippe not to want to see him again before she 
 dies . . ." 
 
 Joseph requested Bixiou, who was a figure in the Bohemian 
 world which Philippe would occasionally frequent, to make 
 that infamous parvenu promise to assume, out of pity, some 
 show of afEection, so as to wrap the poor mother's heart in a 
 shroud graced by illusion. Bixiou, as a student of human 
 nature, a misanthropic scoffer, was ready and willing to un- 
 dertake such a mission. When he had explained Agathe's 
 situation to the Comte de Brambourg, who received him in a 
 bedroom hung with yellow silk damask, the Colonel burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 "What the devil do you want me to do there?" cried he. 
 "The only service the good woman can do me is to kick the 
 bucket as soon as possible, for she would cut a bad figure at 
 my wedding with Mademoiselle de Soulanges. The less family 
 I have to show, the better for me ! As you may well suppose, 
 I only wish I could bury the name of Bridau under all the 
 tombstones in Pere-Lachaise. 
 
 "My brother ruins me by proclaiming my real name to the 
 world. But you, at any rate, are too clever not to understand 
 my position. Come, now — ^if you were to be elected deputy. 
 
288 A. BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 you have a ready tongue of your own ; you would be as much 
 feared as Chauvelin, and you might be made Comte Bixiou, 
 Director of the Beaux Arts. If you had achieved that, and if 
 your grandmother Descoings were still alive, how would you 
 like to have that good woman at your elbow — a woman like 
 Madame Saint-Leon ? Would you offer her your arm in the 
 Tuileries ? Would you introduce her to the noble family you 
 might seek to enter ? By Heaven ! I tell you, you would wish 
 her six feet under ground, packed in a wrapper of lead. — 
 Come, breakfast with me, and we will talk of something else. 
 I am a parvenu, my dear fellow, and I know it. I do not 
 mean to display my baby-clothes! — My son, now, will be 
 luckier than I; he will be a fine gentleman. The rascal will 
 wish me dead, and I quite expect it, or he will be no son of 
 mine." 
 
 He rang the bell ; a footman came in, to whom he said : 
 
 "My friend will breakfast with me. Send up something 
 elegant." 
 
 "But the fashionable world would not see you in your 
 mother's room," retorted Bixiou. "What would it cost you to 
 pretend to love the poor woman for a few hours ?" 
 
 "All my eye !" said Philippe, with a wink. "They have sent 
 you. I am an old bird, and not to be caught with chaff. My 
 mother wants to conjure me with her last breath to fork out 
 something for Joseph ! Thank you for nothing." 
 
 When Bixiou repeated this scene to Joseph, the poor painter 
 felt chilled to the very soul. 
 
 "Does Philippe know that I am ill?" said Agathe in a 
 lamentable voice the evening of the very day when Bixiou had 
 given an account of his errand. 
 
 Joseph left the room choked with tears. The Abbe Loraux, 
 who was at the patient's side, took her hand and pressed it as 
 he replied, "Alas ! my child, you have never had but one son." 
 
 On hearing these words, which she understood, Agathe had 
 an attack that was the beginning of the end. She died twenty 
 hours after. In the wanderings of her mind before death the 
 words escaped her, "Who does Philippe take after?" 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 289 
 
 Joseph alone followed his mother to the grave. Philippe 
 had gone to Orleans on regimental business, scared from Paris 
 by the following letter, addressed to him by Joseph as their 
 mother breathed her last : 
 
 "Wretch, — My poor mother is dead of the shock your letter 
 caused. Put on mourning. But pretend to be ill ; I will not 
 have her murderer to stand at my side by her coffin. 
 
 "Joseph B." 
 
 The painter, who had lost all heart for his painting, though 
 his deep grief perhaps needed the sort of mechanical diversion 
 that work brings with it, was surrounded by friends, who 
 agreed among themselves not to leave him to solitude. Thus 
 Bixiou, who loved Joseph as truly as a scoffer can love any one, 
 was one of a group of friends in Joseph's studio one day, a 
 fortnight after the funeral. At this moment the maid bustled 
 in, and handed to Joseph a letter, brought, as she said, by an 
 old woman who would wait for the answer in the porter's 
 lodge : 
 
 "MoNSiEDE, — ^Whom I do not venture to call my brother, 
 I must apply to you, were it only by reason of the name I 
 bear " 
 
 Joseph turned the page, and looked at the signature at the 
 end. These words, "Comtesse Plore de Brambourg," made 
 his blood run chill, for he foresaw some fresh abomination 
 of his brother's doing. 
 
 "That wretch," said he, "would outdevil the Devil! And 
 that is a man of honor — that can hang a peck of tinsel on its 
 breast — that spreads its tail at Court instead of being 
 flogged at the cart's tail! — And this precious scoundrel is 
 Monsieur le Comte !" 
 
 "There are many like him," said Bixiou. 
 
 "And besides that, this Eabouilleuse deserves nothing from 
 me," Joseph went on. "She is not worth a curse; she would 
 19 
 
290 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 have left me to have my head chopped off like a fowl without 
 ever saying *He is innocent.' " 
 
 As Joseph tossed away the letter, Bixiou nimbly caught it, 
 and read it aloud : — 
 
 " — Is it becoming that Madame la Comtesse de Brambourg, 
 whatever her faults may be, should be sent to die in a hospital ? 
 If that is to be my fate, if that is the Count's wish and yours, 
 so be it; but then, as you are a friend of Doctor Bianchon's, 
 get his introduction to get me into a hospital. The woman 
 who takes you this letter, monsieur, has been eleven days 
 running to the Hotel de Brambourg in the Eue de Clichy 
 without being able to obtain any help from my husband. The 
 state in which I am prevents my employing an attorney so as 
 to obtain by law what is due to me and to die in peace.' Indeed, 
 nothing can save me; I know it. So if you will positively 
 have nothing to say to your unhappy sister-in-law, give me 
 money enough to enable me to put an end to my days; for 
 your brother, I see, wishes my death, and always has wished 
 it. Though he told me he knew three certain ways of killing 
 a woman, I had not the wit to foresee the means he has taken. 
 
 "If so be you should honor me with a little assistance, and 
 judge for yourself of the misery I am in, I am living in the 
 Eue du Houssay, at the corner of the Eue Chantereine, on the 
 fifth floor. If I do not pay my arrears of rent to-morrow, 
 I must turn out. And where am I to go, monsieur? May 
 I sign myself, 
 
 "Your sister-in-law, 
 
 "Comtesse Flore de Beamboueq." 
 
 "What a foul pit of infamy!" said Joseph. "What is 
 there behind it?" 
 
 "Have the woman up first; that will be a worthy preface 
 to the story no doubt," said Bixiou. 
 
 A minute after there appeared on the scene a woman whom 
 Bixiou described as walking rags. She was, in fact, a 
 mass of clothes and old gowns, one over another, bordered 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 291 
 
 with mud from the weather, the whole mounted on thick legs 
 and splay feet, with patched stockings and shoes, from which 
 the water oozed through many cracks. To crown this mass 
 of rubbish was such a head as Charlet has given to his 
 sweepers, helmeted with a hideous bandana, worn threadbare 
 even in the creases. 
 
 "What is your name ?" asked Joseph, while Bixiou sketched 
 the woman as she stood, leaning on an umbrella of the year 
 II. of the Eepublic. 
 
 "Madame Gruget, at your service. I have drawed my 
 dividends in my day, my little gentleman," said she to Bixiou, 
 whose covert smile offended her. "If my pore girl hadn't 
 been so unlucky as to be too fond of a man, I shouldn't look 
 so as you see me. She made a hole in the water, saving your 
 presence, my pore Ida. And then I was fool enough to go in 
 for lottery tickets, four numbers, and sticking to them, and 
 that is why at seventy years old, my good monsieur, I am 
 sick-nurse at ten sous a day and my food " 
 
 "But not your clothes," said Bixiou. "My grandmother 
 dressed herself, besides keeping up a snug little ternion." 
 
 "But out of my ten sous I have to pay for a furnished 
 room . . ." 
 
 "And what has she got — ^this lady you are nursing ?" 
 
 "She has got nothing, monsieur, by way of money I mean ; 
 for she has got some complaint that frightens the doctors. — 
 She owes me sixty days' pay, and that is why I stay with her. 
 Her husband, who is a Count — for she is a Countess — will 
 pay the bill, no doubt, when she is dead, and counting on that, 
 I have lent her all I had . . . But I have nothing left, 
 and I have put everything up the spout. She owes me forty- 
 seven francs and twelve sous, besides the thirty francs wages, 
 and as she wants to choke herself off with charcoal: 'That is 
 not right,' says I — ^more by token I told the woman in the 
 lodge to keep an eye on her while I was out, for she is capable 
 of throwing herself out of window." 
 
 "But what is the matter with her ?" said Joseph. 
 
 "Well, sir, the doctor came from the Sisters ; but as to what 
 
292 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 is the matter," said Madame Gruget, with a prudish air — "he 
 said she must go to the hospital — and she wouldn't get over 
 it." 
 
 "We will go and see about it," said Bixiou. 
 
 "Here," said Joseph, "hare are ten francs." 
 
 After putting his hand into the famous death's-head and 
 taking out all his change, the painter walked to the Rue 
 Mazarine, where he took a hackney cab and went ofE to Bian- 
 ehon, whom he fortunately found at home, while Bixiou set 
 out for the Eue de Bussy to fetch their friend Desroches. The 
 four friends met an hour after in the Eue du Houssay. 
 
 "That Mephistopheles on horseback called Philippe Bridau," 
 said Bixiou to his three friends as they climbed the stairs, 
 "has steered his bark in a cunning way to get rid of his wife. 
 Our friend Lousteau, as you know, only too glad to get a thou- 
 sand-franc note every month from Philippe, kept Madame 
 Bridau in the company of Florine, Mariette, Tullia, and la 
 Val-Noble. As soon as Philippe saw his Rabouilleuse ac- 
 customed to dress and expensive pleasures, he gave her no 
 more money, but left her to make it — ^you may imagine how. 
 Thus by the end of eighteen months Philippe left his wife 
 to sink a little lower, from quarter to quarter; and at last, 
 by the help of a splendid young subaltern, he suggested to her 
 a taste for dram- drinking. As he rose his wife sank, and 
 the Countess is now in the kennel. The woman born in the 
 fields is hard to kill ; I do not know how Philippe set to work 
 to get rid of her. I am curious to study this little drama, for 
 I owe the fellow a revenge. Alas ! my friends," Bixiou went 
 on, in a tone that left his three companions doubtful whether 
 he spoke in joke or in earnest, "to get rid of a man you have 
 only to inoculate him with a vice. 
 
 "'She loved balls too well and that was her death,' said 
 Victor Hugo. There you are. My grandmother loved lottery 
 gambling; Pere Eouget loved a petticoat, and Lolotte was 
 the death of him! Madame Bridau, poor creature, loved 
 Philippe, and by Philippe she has perished. Oh, Vice ! Vice ! 
 — My friends, do you know what vice is ? It is the Bonneau 
 of death." 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 293 
 
 "Then you will die of a jest !" said Desroehes, smiling at 
 Bixiou. 
 
 Above the fourth floor the young men mounted one of those 
 upright stairways like ladders which lead up to the attics of 
 many houses in Paris. Though Joseph, who had seen Flore 
 so handsome, was prepared for a dreadful contrast, he could 
 not conceive of the hideous spectacle that presented itself 
 to his artistic gaze. Under the sharp slope of a garret, with 
 no paper on the walls, and on a camp-bed with a meagre 
 mattress stuffed perhaps with flock, the three men saw a 
 woman as green as a body two days drowned, and as emaci- 
 ated as a consumptive patient within two hours of death. 
 This malodorous carcass wore a common checked handker- 
 chief bound round a head bereft of hair. The caverns of her 
 hollow eyes were red, and the lids like the skin that lines an 
 egg-shell. As to the form that had once been so beautiful, 
 it was a squalid skeleton. 
 
 On seeing her visitors, Flore drew across her bosom a rag 
 of muslin that had probably been a window-blind, for it was 
 edged with rust from the iron rod. The furniture consisted 
 of two chairs, a wretched chest of drawers, on which a tallow 
 candle was set in a potato, some dishes strewn on the floor, 
 and an earthen fire-pot in the corner of an otherwise empty 
 hearth. Bixiou saw the remains of the half-quire of paper 
 purchased at the grocer's for the letter which the two women 
 had no doubt concocted between them. The word loathsome 
 is but a positive degree for which there is no superlative to 
 express the effect produced by this abject scene. 
 
 When the dying woman saw Joseph, two large tears feU. 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 "She can still weep," said Bixiou. "A strange sight indeed 
 — tears flowing from a bag of dominoes. It explains Moses' 
 miracle." 
 
 "Is not she dried up!" cried Joseph. 
 
 "By the fires of repentance," said Flore. "I can have no 
 priest, I have nothing, not even a crucifix to see the Image of 
 God. Oh! monsieur," she went on, uplifting arms like two 
 
294 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 carved wooden sticks, "I have been very wicked, but God never 
 punished any one as He has punished me! Philippe killed 
 Max, who had bidden me to do horrible things, and now he is 
 killing me too. God is using him as a scourge for me ! Be- 
 have yourself well, for we all have our Philippe." 
 
 "Leave me alone with her," said Bianchon ; "I want to find 
 out if her complaint is curable." 
 
 "If she can be cured, Philippe Bridau will be mad with 
 rage," said Desroches. "I wiU have an affidavit prepared as 
 to the state his wife is in; he has not taken any steps against 
 her for adultery; she has all her conjugal rights; he must 
 face the scandal of a trial. First of all, we will have Madame 
 la Comtesse conveyed to Doctor Dubois' Home for the Sick 
 in the Eue du Faubourg Saint-Denis; she will there be 
 nursed in luxury. Then I shall call upon the Count for 
 reinstatement under her husband's roof." 
 
 "Bravo, Desroches !" cried Bixiou. "What joy to be able 
 to do good that will hurt so much !" 
 
 Ten minutes later Bianchon came down and said to his 
 friends: "I am offi at once to Desplein; he can save this 
 woman by an operation. Ah! he will see that she is taken 
 good care of, for the habit of drinking spirits has developed 
 in her a splendid disease that we thought was extinct." 
 
 "You wretch of a doctor, get along ! As if she had but one 
 disease," said Bixiou. 
 
 But Bianchon was already in the courtyard, so great was 
 his haste to go and tell the grand news to Desplein. Two 
 hours later Joseph's unhappy sister-in-law was carried to the 
 private hospital founded by Doctor Dubois, which was sub- 
 sequently bought by the city of Paris. 
 
 Three weeks later the Hospital Gazette contained an ac- 
 count of one of the boldest attempts of modern surgery in 
 operating on a patient mentioned under the initials F. B. 
 The subject died, much more of the weakness consequent on 
 prolonged privations than as a result of the operation. 
 
 The Comte de Brambourg at once went in deep mourning 
 to call on the Comte de Soulanges, and inform him of the 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 295 
 
 melancholy loss he had sustained. It was whispered in the 
 fashionable world that the Comte de Soulanges was allowing 
 his daughter to marry a parvenu of distinguished merit, who 
 was to be made Marechal de Camp and Colonel of a regiment 
 of the Bodyguard. De Marsay announced the news to Eas- 
 tignac, who spoke of it at a supper at the Eocher de Cancale 
 where he met Bixiou. 
 
 "That shall never be !" said the cunning artist to himself. 
 
 If among the friends Philippe had cut adrift there were 
 some who, like Giroudeau, could not revenge themselves, he 
 had proved himself unwary in offending Bixiou, whose wit 
 secured him a reception everywhere, and who never forgave 
 a slight. Now at the Eocher de Cancale, in the presence of 
 highly respectable persons at supper there, Philippe had re- 
 plied when Bixiou asked him to invite him to the Hotel de 
 Brambourg, "You may come to my house when you are a 
 minister." 
 
 "Must I also become a Protestant to get into your house ?" 
 replied Bixiou lightly; but he said to himself, "Though you 
 may be a Goliath, I have a sling, and plenty of stones to 
 fling." 
 
 Next day the practical joker dressed at the house of an 
 actor, a friend of his, and was metamorphosed by the omnipo- 
 tent art of "make-up" into a secularized priest in green spec- 
 tacles ; then he took a fly and drove to the house of the Comte 
 de Soulanges. Bixiou, treated by Philippe as a buffoon, 
 meant to play a trick on him. 
 
 Being admitted by the Comte de Soulanges on his urgent 
 plea that he had an important matter to lay before the Count, 
 Bixiou played the part of a venerable personage charged with 
 an important secret. In an assumed voice he related the 
 history of the dead Countess' illness, of which Bianchon had 
 given him the particulars, that of Agathe's death, that of old 
 Eouget's death, of which the Comte de Brambourg had 
 boasted, and that of old Madame Descoings' end; the story 
 of the "loan" from the cash-box of the newspaper, and the 
 facts as to Philippe's general conduct in his worst times. 
 
296 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte, do not give him your daughter till you 
 have made every inquiry; question his former friends — 
 Bixiou, Captain Giroudeau, and others." 
 
 Three months after this the Comte de Brambourg enter- 
 tained a party at supper: du Tillet, ISTucingen, Eastignac, 
 Maxime de Txailles, and de Marsay. The host was taking 
 very easily the half-consolatory speeches made to him by 
 guests concerning his rupture with the house of Soulanges. 
 
 "You can do better," said Maxime. 
 
 "What fortune would be expected to qualify a man to marry 
 a demoiselle de Grandlieu?" asked Philippe of de Marsay. 
 
 "To qualify you ? — They would not let you have the ugliest 
 of the six for less than ten million francs/' replied de Marsay 
 insolently. 
 
 "Pooh I" said Eastignac ; "but with two hundred thousand 
 francs a year you may have Mademoiselle de Langeais, the 
 Marquis' daughter; she is ugly, she is thirty, and has not a 
 sou of her own. That ought to satisfy you." 
 
 "I shall have ten millions within two years' time," replied 
 Philippe Bridau. 
 
 "It is January 16th, 1829," cried du Tillet, smiUng. "I 
 have been working for ten years, and I have not so much, not 
 I!" 
 
 "We will advise each other, and you will see how I manage 
 money matters." 
 
 "Why, how much have you altogether ?" asked Nucingen. 
 
 "If I sold my securities and everything, excepting my estate 
 and this house, which I could not and will not risk, as they 
 are secured by entail, I could certainly handle three millions." 
 
 Nucingen and du Tillet looked at each other; then after 
 this keen flash, du Tillet said to Philippe : 
 
 "My dear Count, we will work in partnership if you like." 
 
 De Marsay caught the glance that du Tillet had shot at 
 Ifucingen, and which said, "Those millions are ours !" 
 
 In fact, these two great financiers were at the very centre 
 of political affairs, enabling them to gamble on the Bourse 
 at a given date and with absolute certainty, against Philippe, 
 
A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 297 
 
 when the chances would seem to him to be in his favor, while 
 in reality they were in theirs. 
 
 The chance came. In Jnly 1830 du Tillet and ISTucingen 
 had enabled the Comte de Brambourg to make fifteen hundred 
 thousand francs; he no longer distrusted them, and thought 
 their advice sound, Philippe, who had risen by the Eestora- 
 tion, and who was misled by intense contempt for civilians, 
 believed in the success of the new decrees, and would play 
 for a rise; while Nucingen and du Tillet, who expected a 
 Eevolution, played against him for a fall. But the two shrewd 
 partners affected to agree with Colonel the Comte de Bram- 
 bourg, and seemed to share his convictions; they held out 
 hopes of his doubling his millions, and arranged to win them 
 from him. Philippe fought like a man to whom victory 
 means four million francs. His zeal was so conspicuous that 
 he was ordered to return to Saint-Cloud with the Due de 
 Maufrigneuse to sit in council. This mark of favor saved 
 Philippe; for he wanted, on July 35th, to sweep the Boule- 
 vards with a charge of cavalry, and he would no doubt have 
 fallen to a bullet from his friend Giroudeau, who commanded 
 a body of the adversary. 
 
 Within a month nothing of his immense fortune remained 
 to Colonel Bridau but his mansion, his estate, his pictures, 
 and furniture. He was fool enough too, as he said, to be- 
 lieve in the re-establishment of the elder branch, to which 
 he remained faithful till 1834. Then, on seeing Giroudeau 
 a Colonel, Philippe, prompted by very intelligible jealousy, 
 rejoined the service. In 1835 he, unfortunately, was ap- 
 pointed to the command of a regiment in Algiers, where for 
 three years he was left in a post of danger, hoping to win his 
 general's epaulettes ; but a malignant influence — that of Gen- 
 eral Giroudeau — left him where he was. Philippe, by this 
 time grown hard, carried military severity to an extreme, and 
 was detested in spite of his Murat-like bravery. 
 
 At the beginning of the fatal year 1839, while turning to 
 harry the Arabs in the course of a retreat before superior 
 numbers, he rushed on the foe, supported by one company; 
 
298 A BACHELOR'S ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 only. They fell upon a body of Arabs; the struggle was 
 bloody, frightful, hand to hand, and very few of the French 
 horse escaped. Seeing that their Colonel was surrounded, 
 those who were at some little distance did not deem it wise 
 to perish in a vain attempt to rescue him. They heard his 
 shout, "Help! Your Colonel!— A Colonel of the Empire!" 
 followed by fearful cries, but they got back to their regiment. 
 Philippe died a horrible death, for they cut off his head, when 
 he fell hacked almost to pieces by yataghans. 
 
 Joseph, who was married about this time by the good 
 offices of the Comte de Serizy to the daughter of an old 
 millionaire farmer, inherited the house and the estate of 
 Brambourg, which his brother had been unable to sell, though 
 he would gladly have deprived him of his inheritance. What 
 gave the painter most pleasure was the fine collection of 
 pictures. Joseph, whose father-in-law adds daily to his 
 hoards, has already an income of sixty thousand francs. 
 Though he paints splendid pictures, and is always doing ser- 
 vices to his fellow-artists, he is not yet a member of the In- 
 stitute. In consequence of a clause in the parchment of 
 entail, he is now Comte de Brambourg, which often makes 
 him burst out laughing among his friends in his studio. 
 
 "Pine birds make fine feathers," his friend Leon de Lora 
 will then remark; for even now that he is famous as a land- 
 scape painter, he has not given up his old trick of perverting 
 proverbs, and he told Joseph a propos of the modesty with 
 which he accepted the favors of fortune, "Never mind. A 
 feast is as good as enough." 
 
 Paeb, November 1842. 
 
HONORINE 
 
 To Monsieur Achille Deveria. 
 An ajfectionate remembrance from the Author. 
 
 If the French have as great an aversion for traveling as the 
 English have a propensity for it, both English and French 
 have perhaps sufficient reasons. Something better than 
 England is everywhere to be found; whereas it is excessively 
 difficult to find the charms of France outside Prance. Other 
 countries can show admirable scenery, and they frequently 
 offer greater comfort than that of France, which makes but 
 slow progress in that particular. They sometimes display 
 a bewildering magnificence, grandeur, and luxury; they lack 
 neither grace nor noble manners; but the life of the brain, 
 the talent for conversation, the "Attic salt" so familiar at 
 Paris, the prompt apprehension of what one is thinking, but 
 does not say, the spirit of the unspoken, which is half the 
 French language, is nowhere else to be met with. Hence a 
 Frenchman, whose raillery, as it is, finds so little compre- 
 hension, would wither in a foreign land like an uprooted 
 tree. Emigration is counter to the instincts of the French 
 nation. Many Frenchmen, of the kind here in question, have 
 owned to pleasure at seeing the custom-house officers of their 
 native land, which may seem the most daring hyperbole of 
 patriotism. 
 
 This preamble is intended to recall to such Frenchmen as 
 have traveled the extreme pleasure they have felt on occasion- 
 ally finding their native land, like an oasis, in the drawing- 
 room of some diplomate: a pleasure hard to be understood 
 by those who have never left the asphalt of the Boulevard 
 des Italiens, and to whom the Quais of the left bank of the 
 
 (299) 
 
300 HONORINE 
 
 Seine are not really Paris. To find Paris again! Do you 
 know what that means, Parisians? It is to find — not in- 
 deed the cookery of the Rocher de Cancale as Borel elaborates 
 it for those who can appreciate it, for that exists only in the 
 Eue Montorgueil — ^but a meal which reminds you of it ! It 
 is to find the wines of Prance, which out of France are to be 
 regarded as myths, and as rare as the woman of whom I write ! 
 It is to find — not the most fashionable pleasantry, for it loses 
 its aroma between Paris and the frontier — ^but the witty, 
 understanding, the critical atmosphere in which the French 
 live, from the poet down to the artisan, from the duchess to 
 the boy in the street. 
 
 In 1836, when the Sardinian Court was residing at Genoa, 
 two Parisians, more or less famous, could fancy themselves 
 still in Paris when they found themselves in a palazzo, taken 
 by the French Consul-General, on the hill forming the last 
 fold of the Apennines between the gate of San Tomaso and 
 the well-known lighthouse, which is to be seen in all the keep- 
 sake views of Genoa. This palazzo is one of the magnificent 
 villas on which Genoese nobles were wont to spend millions 
 at the time when the aristocratic republic was a power. 
 
 If the early night is beautiful anywhere, it surely is at 
 Genoa, after it has rained as it can rain there, in torrents, 
 aU the morning; when the clearness of the sea vies with that 
 of the sky ; when silence reigns on the quay and in the groves 
 of the villa, and over the marble heads with yawning jaws, 
 from which water mysteriously flows; when the stars are 
 beaming; when the waves of the Mediterranean lap one after 
 another like the avowal of a woman, from whom you drag it 
 word by word. It must be confessed, that the moment when 
 the perfumed air brings fragrance to the lungs and to our 
 day-dreams; when voluptuousness, made visible and ambient 
 as the air, holds you in your easy-chair ; when, a spoon in your 
 hand, you sip an ice or a sorbet, the town at your feet and fair 
 women opposite — such Boccaccio hours can be known only in 
 Italy and on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 Imagine to yourself, round the table, the Marquis di Negro, 
 
HONORINE 301 
 
 a knight hospitaller to all men of talent on their travels, and 
 the Marquis Damaso Pareto, two Frenchmen disguised as 
 Genoese, a Consul-General with a wife as beautiful as a 
 Madonna, and two silent children — silent because sleep has 
 fallen on them — ^the French Ambassador and his wife, a sec- 
 retary to the Embassy who believes himself to be crushed and 
 mischievous; finally, two Parisians, who have come to take 
 leave of the Consul's wife at a splendid dinner, and you will 
 have the picture presented by the terrace of the villa about 
 the middle of May — a picture in which the predominant figure 
 was that of a celebrated woman, on whom all eyes centered 
 now and again, the heroine of this improvised festival. 
 
 One of the two Frenchmen was the famous landscape 
 painter, Leon de Lora; the other a well known critic, 
 Claude Vignon. They had both come with this lady, one of 
 the glories of the fair sex. Mademoiselle des Touches, known 
 in the literary world by the name of Camille Maupin. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had been to Florence on busi- 
 ness. With the charming kindness of which she is prodigal, 
 she had brought with her Leon de Lora to show him Italy, 
 and had gone on as far as Eome that he might see the Cam- 
 pagna. She had come by the Simplon, and was returning 
 by the Cornice road to Marseilles. She had stopped at Genoa, 
 again on the landscape painter's account. The Consul-Gen- 
 eral had, of course, wished to do the honors of Genoa, before 
 the arrival of the Court, to a woman whose wealth, name, and 
 position recommend her no less than her talents. Camille 
 Maupin, who knew her Genoa down to its smallest chapels, 
 had left her landscape painter to the care of the diplomate 
 and the two Genoese marquises, and was miserly of her min- 
 utes. Though the ambassador was a distinguished man of 
 letters, the celebrated lady had refused to yield to his advances, 
 dreading what the English call an exhibition; but she had 
 drawn in the claws of her refusals when it was proposed that 
 they should spend a farewell day at the Consul's villa. Leon 
 de Lora had told Camille that her presence at the villa was 
 the only return he could make to the Ambassador and his 
 
302 HONOBINE 
 
 wife, the two Genoese noblemen, the Consul and his wife. So 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had sacrificed one of those days of 
 perfect freedom, which are not always to be had in Paris by 
 those on whom the world has its eye. 
 
 Now, the meeting being accounted for, it is easy to under- 
 stand that etiquette had been banished, as well as a great many 
 women even of the highest rank, who were curious to know 
 whether Camille Maupin's manly talent impaired her grace 
 as a pretty woman, and to see, in a word, whether the trousers 
 showed below her petticoats. After dinner till nine o'clock, 
 when a collation was served, though the conversation had been 
 gay and grave by turns, and constantly enlivened by Leon de 
 Lora's sallies — for he is considered the most roguish vsdt of 
 Paris to-day — and by the good taste which will surprise no 
 one after the list of guests, literature had scarcely been men- 
 tioned. However, the butterfly Sittings of this French tilting 
 match were certain to come to it, were it only to flutter over 
 this essentially French subject. But before coming to the 
 turn in the conversation which led the Consul-General to 
 speak, it will not be out of place to give some account of him 
 and his family. 
 
 This diplomate, a man of four-and-thirty, who had been 
 married about six years, was the living portrait of Lord 
 Byron. The familiarity of that face makes a description of 
 the Consul's unnecessary. It may, however, be noted that 
 there was no affectation in his dreamy expression. Lord 
 Byron was a poet, and the Consul was poetical ; women know 
 and recognize the difference, which explains without justify- 
 ing some of their attachments. His handsome face, thrown 
 into relief by a delightful nature, had captivated a Genoese 
 heiress. A Genoese heiress ! the expression might raise a 
 smile at Genoa, where, in consequence of the inability of 
 daughters to inherit, a woman is rarely rich; but Onorina 
 Pedrotti, the only child of a banker without heirs male, was an 
 exception. Notwithstanding all the flattering advances 
 prompted by a spontaneous passion, the Consul-General had 
 not seemed to wish to marry. Nevertheless, after living in 
 
HONORINE 303 
 
 the town for two yearSj and after certain steps taken by the 
 Ambassador during his visits to the Genoese Court, the mar- 
 riage was decided on. The young man withdrew his former 
 refusal, less on account of the touching affection of Onorina 
 Pedrotti than by reason of an unknown incident, one of those 
 crises of private life which are so instantly buried under the 
 daily tide of interests that, at a subsequent date, the most 
 natural actions seem inexplicable. 
 
 This involution of causes sometimes affects the most serious 
 events of history. This, at any rate, was the opinion of the 
 town of Genoa, where, to some women, the extreme reserve, 
 the melancholy of the French Consul could be explained only 
 by the word passion. It may be remarked, in passing, that 
 women never complain of being the victims of a preference; 
 they are very ready to immolate themselves for the common 
 weal. Onorina Pedrotti, who might have hated the Consul 
 if she had been altogether scorned, loved her sposo no less, 
 and perhaps more, when she knew that he had loved. Women 
 allow precedence in love affairs. All is well if other women are 
 in question. 
 
 A man is not a diplomate with impunity : the sposo was as 
 secret as the grave — so secret that the merchants of Genoa 
 chose to regard the young Consul's attitude as premeditated, 
 and the heiress might perhaps have slipped through his 
 fingers if he had not played his part of a love-sick malade 
 imaginaire. If it was real, the women thought it too de- 
 grading to be believed. 
 
 Pedrotti's daughter gave him her love as a consolation ; she 
 lulled these unknown griefs in a cradle of tenderness and 
 Italian caresses. 
 
 II Signor Pedrotti had indeed no reason to complain of the 
 choice to which he was driven by his beloved child. Powerful 
 protectors in Paris watched over the young diplomate's for- 
 tunes. In accordance with a promise made by the Ambas- 
 sador to the Consul-General's father-in-law, the young man 
 was created Baron and Commander of the Legion of Honor. 
 Signor Pedrotti himself was made a Count by the King of 
 
304 HONORINE 
 
 Sardinia. Onorina's dower was a million of francs. As to the 
 fortune of the Casa Pedrotti, estimated at two millions, made 
 in the corn trade, the young couple came into it within six 
 months of their marriage, for the first and last Count Pedrotti 
 died in January 1831. 
 
 Onorina Pedrotti is one of those beautiful Genoese women 
 who, when they are beautiful, are the most magnificent crea- 
 tures in Italy. Michael Angelo took his models in Genoa for 
 the tomb of Giuliano. Hence the fulness and singular plac- 
 ing of the breast in the figures of Day and Mght, which so 
 many critics have thought exaggerated, but which is peculiar 
 to the women of Liguria. A Genoese beauty is no longer 
 to be found excepting under the mezzaro, as at Venice it is met 
 with only under the fazzioli. This phenomenon is observed 
 among all fallen nations. The noble type survives only 
 among the populace, as after the burning of a town coins are 
 found hidden in the ashes. And Onorina, an exception as 
 regards her fortune, is no less an exceptional patrician beauty. 
 Eecall to mind the figure of Night which Michael Angelo has 
 placed at the feet of the Pensieroso, dress her in modern garb, 
 twist that long hair round the magnificent head, a little dark 
 in complexion, set a spark of fire in those dreamy eyes, throw 
 a scarf about the massive bosom, see the long dress, white, 
 embroidered with flowers, imagine the statue sitting upright, 
 with her arms folded like those of Mademoiselle Georges, and 
 you will see before you the Consul's wife, with a boy of six, 
 as handsome as a mother's desire, and a little girl of four on 
 her knees, as beautiful as the type of childhood so laboriously 
 sought out by the sculptor David to grace a tomb. 
 
 This beautiful family was the object of Camille's secret 
 study. It struck Mademoiselle des Touches that the Consul 
 looked rather too absent-minded for a perfectly happy man. 
 
 Although, throughout the day, the husband and wife had 
 offered her the pleasing spectacle of complete happiness, 
 Camille wondered why one of the most supMor men she had 
 ever met, and whom she had seen too in Paris drawing-rooms, 
 remained as Consul-General at Genoa when he possessed a 
 
HONORINE 305 
 
 fortune of a hundred odd thousand francs a year. But, at 
 the same time, she had discerned, by many of the little noth- 
 ings which women perceive with the intelligence of the Arab 
 sage in Zadig, that the husband was faithfully devoted. 
 These two handsome creatures would no doubt love each 
 other without a misunderstanding till the end of their days. 
 So Camille said to herself alternately, "What is wrong? — 
 Nothing is wrong," following the misleading symptoms of the 
 Consul's demeanor; and he, it may be said, had the absolute 
 calmness of Englishmen, of savages, of Orientals, and of con- 
 summate diplomatists. 
 
 In discussing literature, they spoke of the perennial stock- 
 in-trade of the republic of letters — woman's sin. And they 
 presently found themselves confronted by two opinions: 
 When a woman sins, is the man or the woman to blame? 
 The three women present — ^the Ambassadress, the Consul's 
 wife, and Mademoiselle des Touches, women, of course, of 
 blameless reputations — were without pity for the woman. 
 The men tried to convince these three fair flowers of their 
 sex that some virtues might remain in a woman after she had 
 fallen. 
 
 "How long are we going to play at hide-and-seek in this 
 way ?" said Leon de Lora. 
 
 "Cara vita, go and put your children to bed, and send me 
 by Gina the little black pocket-book that lies on my Boule 
 cabinet," said the Consul to his wife. 
 
 She rose without a reply, which shows that she loved her 
 husband very truly, for she already knew French enough to 
 understand that her husband was getting rid of her. 
 
 "I will tell you a story in which I played a part, and after 
 that we can discuss it, for it seems to me childish to practise 
 with the scalpel on an imaginary body. Begin by dissecting 
 a corpse." 
 
 Every one prepared to listen, with all the greater readiness 
 because they had all talked enough, and this is the moment 
 to be chosen for telling a story. This^ then, is the Consul- 
 General's tale: — 
 
306 HONORINE 
 
 "When I was two-and-twenty, and had taken my degree in 
 law, my old uncle, the Abbe Loraux, then seventy-two years 
 old, felt it necessary to provide me with a protector, and to 
 start me in some career. This excellent man, if not indeed 
 a saint, regarded each year of his life as a fresh gift from 
 God. I need not tell you that the father confessor of a 
 Eoyal Highness had no difficulty in finding a place for a 
 young man brought up by himself, his sister's only child. So 
 one day, towards the end of the year 1824, this venerable 
 old man, who for five years had been Cure of the White Friars 
 at Paris, came up to the room I had in his house, and said : 
 
 " 'Get yourself dressed, my dear boy ; I am going to intro- 
 duce you to some one who is willing to engage you as secretary. 
 If I am not mistaken, he may fill my place in the event of 
 God's taking me to Himself. I shall have finished mass at 
 nine o'clock; you have three-quarters of an hour before you. 
 Be ready.' 
 
 " 'What, uncle ! must I say good-bye to this room, where for 
 four years I have been so happy ?' 
 
 " 'I have no fortune to leave you,' said he. 
 
 " 'Have you not the reputation of your name to leave me, 
 the memory of your good works ?' 
 
 " 'We need say nothing of that inheritance,' he replied, smil- 
 ing. 'You do not yet know enough of the world to be aware 
 that a legacy of that kind is hardly likely to be paid, whereas 
 by taking you this morning to M. le Comte' — Allow me," said 
 the Consul, interrupting himself, "to speak of my protector 
 by his Christian name only, and to call him Comte Octave. — 
 'By taking you this morning to M. le Comte Octave, I hope to 
 secure you his patronage, which, if you are so fortunate as to 
 please that virtuous statesman — as I make no doubt you can — 
 will be worth, at least, as much as the fortune I might have 
 accumulated for you, if my brother-in-law's ruin and my 
 sister's death had not fallen on me like a thunder-bolt from a 
 clear sky.' 
 
 " 'Are you the Count's director ?' 
 
 " 'If I were, could I place you with him ? What priest 
 
HONORINB 307 
 
 could be capable of taking advantage of the secrets which he 
 learns at the tribunal of repentance ? No ; you owe this po- 
 sition to his Highness, the Keeper of the Seals. My dear 
 Maurice, you will be as much at home there as in your 
 father's house. The Count will give you a salary of two thou- 
 sand four hundred francs, rooms in his house, and an allow- 
 ance of twelve hundred francs in lieu of feeding you. He 
 will not admit you to his table, nor give you a separate table, 
 for fear of leaving you to the care of servants. I did not 
 accept the offer when it was made to me till I was perfectly 
 certain that Comte Octave's secretary was never to be a mere 
 upper servant. You will have an immense amount of work, 
 for the Count is a great worker ; but when you leave him, you 
 will be qualified the fill the highest posts. I need not warn 
 you to be discreet; that is the first virtue of any man who 
 hopes to hold public appointments.' 
 
 "You may conceive of my curiosity. Comte Octave, at 
 that time, held one of the highest legal appointments ; he was 
 in the confidence of Madame the Dauphiness, who had just 
 got him made a State Minister; he led such a life as the 
 Comte de Serizy, whom you all know, I think ; but even more 
 quietly, for his house was in the Marais, Eue Payenne, and 
 he hardly ever entertained. His private life escaped public 
 comment by its hermit-like simplicity and by constant hard 
 work. 
 
 "Let me describe my position to you in a few words. Having 
 found in the solemn headmaster of the College Saint-Louis 
 a tutor to whom my uncle delegated his authority, at the age 
 of eighteen I had gone through all the classes; I left school 
 as innocent as a seminarist, full of faith, on quitting Saint- 
 Sulpiee. My mother, on her deathbed, had made my uncle 
 promise that I should not become a priest, but I was as pious 
 as though I had to take orders. On leaving college, the 
 Abbe Loraux took me into his house and made me study law. 
 During the four years of study requisite for passing all the 
 examinations, I worked hard, but chiefly at things outside 
 the arid fields of jurisprudence. Weaned from literature 
 
308 HONORINE 
 
 as I had been at college, where I lived in the headmaster's 
 house, I had a thirst to quench. As soon as I had read a few- 
 modern masterpieces, the works of all the preceding ages were 
 greedily swallowed. I became crazy about the theatre, and 
 for a long time I went every night to the play, though my 
 uncle gave me only a hundred francs a month. This parsi- 
 mony, to which the good old man was compelled by his regard 
 for the poor, had the effect of keeping a young man's desires 
 within reasonable limits. 
 
 "When I went to live with Comte Octave I was not indeed 
 an innocent, but I thought of my rare escapades as crimes. 
 My uncle was so truly angelic, and I was so much afraid of 
 grieving him, that in all those four years I had never spent 
 a night out. The good man would wait till I came in to go to 
 bed. This maternal care had more power to keep me within 
 bounds than the sermons and reproaches with which the life 
 of a young man is diversified in a puritanical home. I was 
 a stranger to the various circles which make up the world of 
 Paris society ; I only knew some women of the better sort, and 
 none of the inferior class but those I saw as I walked about, 
 or in the boxes at the play, and then only from the depths 
 of the pit where I sat. If, at that period, any one had said 
 to me, 'You will see Canalis, or Camille Maupin,' I should 
 have felt hot coals in my head and in my bowels. Famous 
 people were to me as gods, who neither spoke, nor walked, 
 nor ate like other mortals. 
 
 "How many tales of the Thousand-and-one Nights are com- 
 prehended in the ripening of a youth ! How many wonderful 
 lamps must we have rubbed before we understand that the 
 True Wonderful Lamp is either luck, or work, or genius. In 
 some men this dream of the aroused spirit is but brief ; mine 
 has lasted until now ! In those days I always went to sleep as 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany, — as a millionaire, — as beloved by a 
 princess, — or famous! So to enter the service of Comte 
 Octave, and have a hundred louis a year, was entering on 
 independent life. I had glimpses of some chance of getting 
 into society, and seeking for what my heart desired most, a 
 
HONORINE 309 
 
 protectress, who would rescue me from the paths of danger, 
 which a young man of two-and-twenty can hardly help tread- 
 ing, however prudent and well brought up he may be. I 
 began to be afraid of myself. 
 
 "The persistent study of other people's rights into which 
 I had plunged was not always enough to repress painful 
 imaginings. Yes, sometimes in fancy I threw myself into 
 theatrical life ; I thought I could be a great actor ; I dreamed of 
 endless triumphs and loves, knowing nothing of the dis- 
 illusion hidden behind the curtain, as everywhere else — for 
 every stage has its reverse behind the scenes. I have gone 
 out sometimes, my heart boiling, carried away by an impulse 
 to rush hunting through Paris, to attach myself to some 
 handsome woman I might meet, to follow her to her door, 
 watch her, write to her, throw myself on her mercy, and con- 
 quer her by sheer force of passion. My poor uncle, a heart 
 consumed by charity, a child of seventy years, as clear-sighted 
 as God, as guileless as a man of genius, no doubt read the 
 tumult of my soul; for when he felt the tether by which he 
 held me strained too tightly and ready to break, he would 
 never fail to say, 'Here, Maurice, you too are poor! Here 
 are twenty francs; go and amuse yourself, you are not a 
 priest !' And if you could then have seen the dancing light 
 that gilded his gray eyes, the smile that relaxed his fine 
 lips, puckering the corners of his mouth, the adorable expres- 
 sion of that august face, whose native ugliness was redeemed 
 by the spirit of an apostle, you would understand the feeling 
 which made me answer the Cure of White Friars only with a 
 kiss, as if he had been my mother. 
 
 " 'In Comte Octave you will find not a master, but a friend,' 
 said my uncle on the way to the Hue Payenne. 'But he is 
 distrustful, or to be more exact, he is cautious. The states- 
 man's friendship can be won only with time; for in spite of 
 his deep insight and his habit of gauging men, he was deceived 
 by the man you are succeeding, and nearly became a victim to 
 his abuse of confidence. This is enough to guide you in your 
 behavior to him.' 
 
310 HONOEINE 
 
 "When we knocked at the enormous outer door of a 
 house as large as the Hotel Carnavalet, with a courtyard 
 in front and a garden behind, the sound rang as in a 
 desert. "While my uncle inquired of an old porter in 
 livery if the Count were at home, I cast my eyes, seeing 
 everything at once, over the courtyard where the cobble- 
 stones were hidden in grass, the blackened walls where 
 little gardens were flourishing above the decorations of 
 the elegant architecture, and on the roof, as high as that of the 
 Tuileries. The balustrade of the upper balconies was eaten 
 away. Through a magnificent colonnade I could see a second 
 court on one side, where were the offices ; the door was rotting. 
 An old coachman was there cleaning an old carriage. The 
 indifferent air of this servant allowed me to assume that 
 the handsome stables, where of old so many horses had whin- 
 nied, now sheltered two at most. The handsome f agade of the 
 house seemed to me gloomy, like that of a mansion belonging 
 to the State or the Crown, and given up to some public office. 
 A bell rang as we walked across, my uncle and I, from the 
 porter's lodge — Inquire of the Porter was still written over 
 the door — towards the outside steps, where a footman came out 
 in a livery like that of Labranche at the Theatre Frang'ais in 
 the old stock plays. A visitor was so rare that the servant was 
 putting his coat on when he opened a glass door with small 
 panes, on each side of which the smoke of a lamp had traced 
 patterns on the walls. 
 
 "A hall so magnificent as to be worthy of Versailles ended 
 in a staircase such as will never again be built in France, 
 taking up as much space as the whole of a modern house. As 
 we went up the marble steps, as cold as tombstones, and wide 
 enough for eight persons to walk abreast, our tread echoed 
 under sonorous vaulting. The banister charmed the eye by 
 its miraculous workmanship — goldsmith's work in iron — 
 wrought by the fancy of an artist of the time of Henri III. 
 Chilled as by an icy mantle that fell on our shoulders, we went 
 through ante-rooms, drawing-rooms opening one out of the 
 other, with carpetless parquet floors, and furnished with such 
 
HONORINE 311 
 
 splendid antiquities as from thence would find their way to the 
 curiosity dealers. At last we reached a large study in a cross 
 wing, with all the windows looking into an immense garden. 
 
 " 'Monsieur le Cure of the White Friars, and his nephew, 
 Monsieur de I'Hostal,' said Labranehe, to whose care the 
 other theatrical servant had consigned us in the first ante- 
 chamber. 
 
 "Comte Octave, dressed in long trousers and a gray flannel 
 morning coat, rose from his seat by a huge writing-table, came 
 to the fireplace, and signed to me to sit down, while he went 
 forward to take my uncle's hands, which he pressed. 
 
 " 'Though I am in the parish of Saint-Paul,' said he, 'I 
 could scarcely have failed to hear of the Cure of the White 
 Friars, and I am happy to make his acquaintance.' 
 
 " 'Your Excellency is most kind,' replied my uncle. 'I 
 have brought to you my only remaining relation. While I 
 believe that I am offering a good gift to your Excellency, I 
 hope at the same time to give my nephew a second father.' 
 
 " 'As to that, I can only reply, Monsieur I'Abbe, when we 
 shall have tried each other,' said Comte Octave. 'Your name ?' 
 he added to me. 
 
 " 'Maurice.' 
 
 " 'He has taken his doctor's degree in law,' my uncle ob- 
 served. 
 
 " 'Very good, very good !' said the Count, looking at me 
 from head to foot. 'Monsieur I'Abbe, I hope that for your 
 nephew's sake in the first instance, and then for mine, you 
 will do me the honor of dining here every Monday. That 
 will be our family dinner, our family party.' 
 
 "My uncle and the Count then began to talk of religion 
 from the political point of view, of charitable institutes, the 
 repression of crime, and I could at my leisure study the man 
 on whom my fate would henceforth depend. The Count was 
 of middle height ; it was impossible to judge of his build on 
 account of his dress, but he seemed to me to be lean and spare. 
 His face was harsh and hollow; the features were refined. 
 His mouth, which was rather large, expressed both irony and 
 
312 HONORINE 
 
 kindliness. His forehead, perhaps too spacious, was as in- 
 timidating as that of a madman, all the more so from the 
 contrast of the lower part of the face, which ended squarely 
 in a short chin very near the lower lip. Small eyes, of tur- 
 quoise blue, were as keen and bright as those of the Prince 
 de Talleyrand — ^whieh I admired at a later time — and en- 
 dowed, like the Prince's, with the faculty of becoming ex- 
 pressionless to the verge of gloom; and they added to the 
 singularity of a face that was not pale but yellow. This com- 
 plexion seemed to bespeak an irritable temper and violent 
 passions. His hair, already silvered, and carefully dressed, 
 seemed to furrow his head with streaks of black and white 
 alternately. The trimness of this head spoiled the resemblance 
 I had remarked in the Count to the wonderful monk described 
 by Lewis after Schedoni in the Confessional of the Black Peni- 
 tents {The Italian), a superior creation, as it seems to me, 
 to The Monk. 
 
 "The Count was already shaved, having to attend early at 
 the law courts. Two candelabra with four lights, screened 
 by lamp-shades, were still burning at the opposite ends of the 
 writing-table, and showed plainly that the magistrate rOse 
 long before daylight. His hands, which I saw when he took 
 hold of the bell-pull to summon his servant, were extremely 
 fine, and as white as a woman's. 
 
 "As I tell you this story," said the Consul-General, in- 
 terrupting himself, "I am altering the titles and the social 
 position of this gentleman, while placing him in circumstances 
 analogous to what his really were. His profession, rank, 
 luxury, fortune, and style of living were the same; all these 
 details are true, but I will not be false to my benefactor, nor 
 to my usual habits of discretion. 
 
 "Instead of feeling — as I really was, socially speaking — an 
 insect in the presence of an eagle," the narrator went on after 
 a pause, "I felt I know not what indefinable impression from 
 the Count's appearance, which, however, I can now account 
 for. Artists of genius" (and he bowed gracefully to the Am- 
 bassador, the distinguished lady, and the two Frenchmen), 
 
HONORINE 313 
 
 "real statesmen, poets, a general who has commanded armies 
 — in short, all really great minds are simple, and their sim- 
 plicity places you on a level with themselves. — You who are 
 all of superior minds," he said, addressing his guests, "have 
 perhaps observed how feeling can bridge over the distances 
 created by society. If we are inferior to you in intellect, 
 we can be your equals in devoted friendship. By the tempera- 
 ture — allow me the word — of our hearts I felt myself as near 
 my patron as I was far below him in rank. In short, the soul 
 has its clairvoyance; it has presentiments of suffering, grief, 
 joy, antagonism, or hatred in others. 
 
 "I vaguely discerned the symptoms of a mystery, from 
 recognizing in the Count the same effects of physiognomy 
 as I had observed in my uncle. The exercise of virtue, 
 serenity of conscience, and purity of mind had transfigured 
 my uncle, who from being ugly had become quite beautiful. 
 " I detected a metamorphosis of a reverse kind in the Count's 
 face; at the first glance I thought he was about fifty-five,, but 
 after an attentive examination I found youth entombed under 
 the ice of a great sorrow, under the fatigue of persistent study, 
 under the glowing hues of some suppressed passion. At a 
 word from my uncle the Count's eyes recovered for a moment 
 the softness of the periwinkle flower, and he had an admiring 
 smile, which revealed what I believed to be his real age, about 
 forty. These observations I made, not then but afterwards, 
 as I recalled the circumstances of my visit. 
 
 "The man-servant came in carrying a tray with his master's 
 breakfast on it. 
 
 " 'I did not ask for breakfast,' remarked the Count ; Tjut 
 leave it, and show monsieur to his rooms.' 
 
 "I followed the servant, who led the way to a complete set 
 of pretty rooms, under a terrace, between the great courtyard 
 and the servants' quarters, over a corridor of communication 
 between the kitchens and the grand staircase. When I re- 
 turned to the Count's study, I overheard, before opening the 
 door, my uncle pronouncing this judgment on me : 
 
 " 'He may do wrong, for he has strong feelings, and we are 
 all liable to honorable mistakes ; but he has no vices.' 
 
314 HONOBINB 
 
 "'Well,' said the Count, with a kindly look, 'do you like 
 yourself there? Tell me. There are so many rooms in this 
 barrack that, if you were not comfortable, I could put you 
 elsewhere.' 
 
 " 'At my uncle's I had but one room,' replied I. 
 
 '"Well, you can settle yourself this evening,' said the 
 Count, 'for your possessions, no doubt, are such as all stu- 
 dents own, and a hackney coach will be enough to convey them. 
 To-day we will all three dine together,' and he looked at my 
 uncle. 
 
 "A splendid library opened from the Count's study, and he 
 took us in there, showing me a pretty little recess decorated 
 with paintings, which had formerly served, no doubt, as an 
 oratory. 
 
 " 'This is your cell,' said he. 'You will sit there when you 
 have to work with me, for you will not be tethered by a chain ;' 
 and he explained in detail the kind and duration of my em- ' 
 ployment with him. As I listened I felt that he was a great 
 political teacher. 
 
 "It took me about a month to familiarize myself with 
 people and things, to learn the duties of my new office, and 
 accustom myself to the Count's methods. A secretary nec- 
 essarily watches the man who makes use of him. That man's 
 tastes, passions, temper, and manias become the subject of in- 
 voluntary study. The union of their two minds is at once 
 more and less than a marriage. 
 
 "During these months the Count and I reciprocally 
 studied each other. I learned with astonishment that Comte 
 Octave was but thirty-seven years old. The merely superficial 
 peacefulness of his life and the propriety of his conduct were 
 the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and of stoical 
 reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man — an ex- 
 traordinary man to those who knew him well — I felt vast 
 depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask 
 of benignity, his assumption of resignation, which so closely 
 resembled calmness that is was easy to mistake it. Just as 
 when walking through forest-lands certain soils give forth 
 
HONORINB 315 
 
 under our feet a sound which enables us to guess whether they 
 are dense masses of stone or a void ; so intense egoism, though 
 hidden under the flowers of politeness, and subterranean cav- 
 erns eaten out by sorrow sound hollow under the constant touch 
 of familiar life. It was sorrow and not despondency that 
 dwelt in that really great soul. The Count had understood 
 that actions, deeds, are the supreme law of social man. 
 And he went on his way in spite of secret wounds, looking 
 to the future with a tranquil eye, like a martyr full of 
 faith. 
 
 "His concealed sadness, the bitter disenchantment from 
 which he suffered, had not led him into philosophical deserts 
 of incredulity; this brave statesman was religious, 
 without ostentation; he always attended the earliest mass 
 at Saint-Paul's for pious workmen and servants. Ifot one 
 of his friends, no one at Court, knew that he so punctually 
 fulfilled the practice of religion. He was addicted to G-od 
 as some men are addicted to a vice, with the greatest mystery. 
 Thus one day I came to find the Count at the summit of an 
 Alp of woe much higher than that on which many are who 
 think themselves the most tried; who laugh at the passions 
 and the beliefs of others because they have conquered their 
 own; who play variations in every key of irony and disdain. 
 He did not mock at those who still follow hope into the 
 swamps whither she leads, nor those who climb a peak to be 
 alone, nor those who persist in the fight, reddening the arena 
 with their blood and strewing it with their illusions. He 
 looked on the world as a whole; he mastered its beliefs; he 
 listened to its complaining; he was doubtful of afEection, and 
 yet more of self-sacrifice; but this great and stern judge 
 pitied them, or admired them, not with transient enthu- 
 siasm, but with silence, concentration, and the communion of 
 a deeply-touched soul. He was a sort of catholic Manfred, 
 and unstained by crime, carrying his choiceness into his 
 faith, melting the snows by the fires of a sealed volcano, hold- 
 ing converse with a star seen by himself alone ! 
 
 "I detected many dark riddles in his ordinary life. He 
 
316 HONORINE 
 
 evaded my gaze not like a traveler who, following a path, 
 disappears from time to time in dells or ravines according 
 to the formation of the soil, but like a sharpshooter who is 
 being watched, who wants to hide himself, and seeks a cover. 
 I could not account for his frequent absences at the times 
 when he was working the hardest, and of which he made no 
 secret from me, for he would say, 'Go on with this for me,' 
 and trust me with the work in hand. 
 
 "This man, wrapped in the threefold duties of the states- 
 man, the judge, and the orator, charmed me by a taste for 
 flowers, which shows an elegant mind, and which is shared by 
 almost all persons of refinement. His garden and his study 
 were full of the rarest plants, but he always bought them half- 
 withered. Perhaps it pleased him to see such an image of his 
 own fate ! He was faded like these dying flowers, whose almost 
 decaying fragrance mounted strangely to his brain. The 
 Count loved his country; he devoted himself to public in- 
 terests with the frenzy of a heart that seeks to cheat some 
 other passion; but the studies and work into which he threw 
 himself were not enough for him; there were frightful 
 struggles in his mind, of which some echoes reached me. 
 Finally, he would give utterance to harrowing aspirations for 
 happiness, and it seemed to me he ought yet to be happy ; but 
 what was the obstacle ? Was there a woman he loved ? This 
 was a question I asked myself. You may imagine the extent 
 of the circles of torment that my mind had searched before 
 coming to so simple and so terrible a question. Notwithstand- 
 ing his efforts, my patron did not succeed in stifling the move- 
 ments of his heart. Under his austere manner, under the 
 reserve of the magistrate, a passion rebelled, though coerced 
 with such force that no one but I who lived with him ever 
 guessed the secret. His motto seemed to be, '1 suffer, and am 
 silent.' The escort of respect and admiration which attended 
 him ; the friendship of workers as valiant as himself — Grand- 
 ville and Serizy, both presiding judges — had no hold over the 
 Count : either he told them nothing, or they knew all. Im- 
 passible and lofty in public, the Count betrayed the man only 
 
HONORINE 317 
 
 on rare intervals when, alone in his garden or his study, he 
 supposed himself unobserved ; but then he was a child again, 
 he gave course to the tears hidden beneath the toga, to the 
 excitement which, if wrongly interpreted, might have damaged 
 his credit for perspicacity as a statesman. 
 
 ''When all this had become to me a matter of certainty, 
 Comte Octave had all the attractions of a problem, and won 
 on my affection as much as though he had been my own father. 
 Can you enter into the feeling of curiosity, tempered by 
 respect? What catastrophe had blasted this learned man, 
 who, like Pitt, had devoted himself from the age of eighteen 
 to the studies indispensable to power, while he had no am- 
 bition; this judge, who thoroughly knew the law of nations, 
 political law, civil and criminal law, and who could 
 find in these a weapon against every anxiety, against every 
 mistake; this profound legislator, this serious writer, this 
 pious celibate whose life sufficiently proved that he was open 
 to no reproach ? A criminal could not have been more hardly 
 punished by God than was my master ; sorrow had robbed him 
 of half his slumbers; he never slept more than four hours. 
 What struggle was it that went on in the depths of these hours 
 apparently so calm, so studious, passing without a sound or 
 a murmur, during which I often detected him, when the pen 
 had dropped from his fingers, with his head resting on 
 one hand, his eyes like two fixed stars, and sometimes wet 
 with tears ? How could the waters of that living spring flow 
 over the burning strand without being dried up by the subter- 
 ranean fire? Was there below it, as there is under the sea, 
 between it and the central fires of the globe, a bed of granite ? 
 And would the volcano burst at last ? 
 
 "Sometimes the Count would give me a look of that sa- 
 gacious and keen-eyed curiosity by which one man searches 
 another when he desires an accomplice; then he shunned 
 my eye as he saw it open a mouth, so to speak, insisting on a 
 reply, and seeming to say, 'Speak first !' ISTow and then Comte 
 Octave's melancholy was surly and gruff. If these spurts of 
 temper offended me, he could get over it without thinking of 
 
318 HONOEINB 
 
 asking my pardon ; but then Ms manners were gracious to the 
 point of Christian humility. 
 
 "When I became attached like a son to this man — to me 
 such a mystery, but so intelligible to the outer world, to whom 
 the epithet eccentric is enough to account for all the enigmas 
 of the heart- — I changed the state of the house. Neglect of 
 his own interests was carried by the Count to the length of 
 folly in the management of his affairs. Possessing an income 
 of about a hundred and sixty thousand francs, without in- 
 cluding the emoluments of his appointments — ^three of which 
 did not come under the law against plurality — he spent sixty 
 thousand, of which at least thirty thousand went to his ser- 
 vants. By the end of the first year I had got rid of all these 
 rascals, and begged His Excellency to use his influence in 
 helping me to get honest servants. By the end of the second 
 year the Count, better fed and better served, enjoyed the com- 
 forts of modern life ; he had fine horses, supplied by a coach- 
 man to whom I paid so much a month for each horse; his 
 dinners on his reception days, furnished by Chevet at a price 
 agreed upon, did him credit; his daily meals were prepared 
 by an excellent cook found by my uncle, and helped by two 
 kitchenmaids. The expenditure for housekeeping, not in- 
 cluding purchases, was no more than thirty thousand francs a 
 year ; we had two additional men-servants, whose care restored 
 the poetical aspect of the house ; for this old palace, splendid 
 even in its rust, had an air of dignity which neglect had dis- 
 honored. 
 
 " 'I am no longer astonished,' said he, on hearing of these 
 results, 'at the fortunes made by my servants. In seven years 
 I have had two cooks, who have become rich restaurant- 
 keepers.' 
 
 " 'And in seven years you have lost a hundred thousand 
 francs,' replied I. 'You, a judge, who in your court sign 
 summonses against crime, encouraged robbery in your own 
 house.' 
 
 "Early in the year 1836 the Count had, no doubt, ceased 
 to watch me, and we were as closely attached as two men 
 
HONORINE 819 
 
 can be when one is subordinate to the other. He had never 
 spoken to me of my future prospects, but he had taken an in- 
 terest, both as a master and as a father, in training me. He 
 often required me to collect materials for his most arduous 
 labors ; I drew up some of his reports, and he corrected them, 
 showing the difference between his interpretation of the law, 
 his views and mine. When at last I had produced a docu- 
 ment which he could give in as his own he was delighted ; this 
 satisfaction was my reward, and he could see that I took it so. 
 This little incident produced an extraordinary effect on a soul 
 which seemed so stem. The Count pronounced sentence on 
 me, to use a legal phrase, as supreme and royal judge ; he took 
 my head in his hands, and kissed me on the forehead. 
 
 " 'Maurice,' he exclaimed, 'you are no longer my apprentice ; 
 I know not yet what you will be to me — but if no change 
 occurs in my life, perhaps you will take the place of a son.' 
 
 "Comte Octave had introduced me to the best houses in 
 Paris, whither I went in his stead, with his servants and car- 
 riage, on the too frequent occasions when, on the point of 
 starting, he changed his mind, and sent for a hackney cab to 
 take him — Where? — that was the mystery. By the welcome 
 I met with I could judge of the Count's feelings towards me, 
 and the earnestness of his recommendations. He supplied 
 all my wants with the thoughtfulness of a father, and with 
 all the greater liberality because my modesty left it to him 
 always to think of me. Towards the end of January 1837, at 
 the house of the Comtesse de Serizy, I had such persistent 
 ill-luck at play that I lost two thousand francs, and I would 
 not draw them out of my savings. Next morning I asked my- 
 self, 'Had I better ask my uncle for the money, or put my con- 
 fidence in the Count ?' 
 
 "I decided on the second alternative. 
 
 '"Yesterday,' said I, when he was at breakfast, 'I lost 
 persistently at play ; I was provoked, and went on ; I owe two 
 thousand francs. Will you allow me to draw the sum on ac- 
 count of my year's salary ?' 
 
 " 'No,' said he, with the sweetest smile ; 'when a man plays 
 
320 HONOEINE 
 
 in society, he must have a gambling purse. Draw six thou- 
 sand francs ; pay your debts. Henceforth we must go halves ; 
 for since you are my representative on most occasions, your 
 self-respect must not be made to suffer for it.' 
 
 "I made no speech of thanks. Thanks would have been 
 superfluous between us. This shade shows the character of 
 our relations. And yet we had not yet unlimited confidence 
 in each other; he did not open to me the vast subterranean 
 chambers which I had detected in his secret life; and I, for 
 my part, never said to him, 'What ails you ? From what are 
 you suffering?' 
 
 "What could he be doing during those long evenings ? He 
 would often come in on foot or in a hackney cab when I re- 
 turned in a carriage — I, his secretary ! Was so pious a man a 
 prey to vices hidden under hypocrisy ? Did he expend all the 
 powers of his mind to satisfy a jealousy more dexterous than 
 Othello's ? Did he live with some woman unworthy of him ? 
 One morning, on returning from I have forgotten what shop, 
 where I had just paid a bill, between the Church of Saint- 
 Paul and the Hotel de Ville, I came across Comte Octave in 
 such eager conversation with an old woman that he did not 
 see me. The appearance of this hag filled me with strange 
 suspicions, suspicions that were all the better founded be- 
 cause I never found that the Count invested his savings. 
 Is it not shocking to think of? I was constituting myself 
 my patron's censor. At that time I knew that he had more 
 than six hundred thousand francs to invest; and if he had 
 bought securities of any kind, his confidence in me was so 
 complete in all that concerned his pecuniary interests, that I 
 certainly should have known it. 
 
 "Sometimes, in the morning, the Count took exercise in his 
 garden, to and fro, like a man to whom a walk is the hippo- 
 gryph ridden by dreamy melancholy. He walked and walked ! 
 And he rubbed his hands enough to rub the skin off. And 
 then, if I met him unexpectedly as he came to the angle of a 
 path, I saw his face beaming. His eyes, instead of the hard- 
 ness of a turquoise, had that velvety softness of the blue peri- 
 
HONOEINB 321 
 
 winkle, which had so much struck me on the occasion of my 
 first visit, by reason of the astonishing contrast in the two 
 different looks; the look of a happy man, and the look of an 
 unhappy man. Two or three times at such a moment he had 
 taken me by the arm and led me on ; then he had said, 'What 
 have you come to ask?' instead of pouring out his joy into my 
 heart that opened to him. But more often, especially since 
 I could do his work for him and write his reports, the un- 
 happy man would sit for hours staring at the goldfish that 
 swarmed in a handsome marble basin in the middle of the 
 garden, round which grew an amphitheatre of the finest 
 flowers. He, an accomplished statesman, seemed to have 
 succeeded in making a passion of the mechanical amusement 
 of crumbling bread to fishes. 
 
 "This is how the drama was disclosed of this second inner 
 life, so deeply ravaged and storm-tossed, where, in a circle 
 overlooked by Dante in his Inferno, horrible joys had their 
 birth." 
 
 The Consul-General paused. 
 
 "On a certain Monday," he resumed, "as chance would have 
 it, M. le President de G-randville and M. de Serizy (at that 
 time Vice-President of the Council of State) had come to hold 
 a meeting at Comte Octave's house. They formed a com- 
 mittee of three, of which I was the secretary. The Count 
 had already got me the appointment of Auditor to the Council 
 of State. All the documents requisite for their inquiry into 
 the political matter privately submitted to these three gentlemen 
 were laid out on one of the long tables in the library. MM. 
 de Grandville and de Serizy had trusted to the Count to make 
 the preliminary examination of the papers relating to the 
 matter. To avoid the necessity for carrying all the papers to 
 M. de Serizy, as president of the commission, it was decided 
 that they should meet first in the Eue Payenne. The 
 Cabinet at the Tuileries attached great importance to this 
 piece of work, of which the chief burden fell on me — and to 
 
 21 
 
322 HONORINE 
 
 which I owed my appointment, in the course of that year, to 
 be Master of Appeals. 
 
 "Though the Comtes de Grandville and de Serizy, whose 
 habits were much the same as my patron's, never dined away 
 from home, we were still discussing the matter at a late hour, 
 when we were startled by the man-servant calling me aside to 
 say, 'MM. the Cures of Saint-Paul and of the White Friars 
 have been waiting in the drawing-room for two hours.' 
 
 "It was nine o'clock. 
 
 " 'Well, gentlemen, you find yourselves compelled to dine 
 with priests,' said Comte Octave to his colleagues. 'I do not 
 know whether Grandville can overcome his horror of a priest's 
 gown ' 
 
 "'It depends on the priest.' 
 
 " 'One of them is my uncle, and the other is the Abb6 
 Gaudron,' said I. 'Do not be alarmed; the Abbe Fontanon 
 is no longer second priest at Saint-Paul ' 
 
 " 'Well, let us dine,' replied the President de Grandville. 
 'A bigot frightens me, but there is no one so cheerful as a 
 truly pious man.' 
 
 "We went into the drawing-room. The dinner was delight- 
 ful. Men of real information, politicians to whom business 
 gives both consummate experience and the practice of speech, 
 are admirable story-tellers, when they tell stories. With them 
 there is no medium ; they are either heavy, or they are sublime. 
 In this delightful sport Prince Metternich is as good as 
 Charles ISTodier. The fun of a statesman, cut in facets like 
 a diamond, is sharp, sparkling, and full of sense. Being 
 sure that the proprieties would be observed by these three 
 superior men, my uncle allowed his wit full play, a refined 
 wit, gentle, penetrating, and elegant, like that of all men 
 who are accustomed to conceal their thoughts under the black 
 robe. And you may rely upon it, there was nothing vulgar 
 nor idle in this light talk, which I would compare, for its 
 effect on the soul, to Eossini's music. 
 
 "The Abbe Gaudron was, as M. de Grandville said, a Saint 
 Peter rather than a Saint Paul, a peasant full of faith, as 
 
H0N0RINE5 S23 
 
 square on his feet as he was tall, a sacerdotal of whose igno- 
 rance in matters of the world and of literature enlivened the 
 conversation by guileless amazement and unexpected ques- 
 tions. They came to talking of one of the plague spots of 
 social life, of which we were just now speaking — adultery. 
 My uncle remarked on the contradiction which the legislators 
 of the Code, still feeling the blows of the revolutionary 
 storm, had established between civil and religious law, and 
 which he said was at the root of all the mischief. 
 
 " 'In the eyes of the Church,' said he, 'adultery is a crime ; 
 in those of your tribunals it is a misdemeanor. Adultery 
 drives to the police court in a carriage instead of standing at 
 the bar to be tried. Napoleon's Council of State, touched 
 with tenderness towards erring women, was quite inefficient. 
 Ought they not in this case to have harmonized the civil and 
 the religious law, and have sent the guilty wife to a convent, 
 as of old?' 
 
 " 'To a convent !' said M. de Serizy. 'They must first have 
 created convents, and in those days monasteries were being 
 turned into barracks. Besides, think of what you say, M. 
 I'Abbe — give to God what society would have none of ?' 
 
 " 'Oh !' said the Comte de Grandville, 'you do not know 
 France. They were obliged to leave the husband free to take 
 proceedings : well, there are not ten cases of adultery brought 
 up in a year.' 
 
 " 'M. I'Abbe preaches for his own saint, for it was Jesus 
 Christ who invented adultery,' said Comte Octave. 'In the 
 East, the cradle of the human race, woman was merely a 
 luxury, and there was regarded as a chattel; no virtues were 
 demanded of her but obedience and beauty. By exalting the 
 soul above the body, the modern family in Europe — a daughter 
 of Christ — ^invented indissoluble marriage, and made it a 
 sacrament.' 
 
 " 'Ah ! the Church saw the difficulties,' exclaimed M. de 
 Grandville. 
 
 " 'This institution has given rise to a new world,' the Count 
 went on with a smile. 'But the practices of that world will 
 
324 HONORINE 
 
 never be that of a climate where women are marriageable at 
 seven years of age, and more than old at five-and-twenty. 
 The Catholic Church overlooked the needs of half the globe. 
 — So let us discuss Europe only. 
 
 " 'Is woman our superior or our inferior ? That is the 
 real question so far as we are concerned. If woman is our 
 inferior, by placing her on so high a level as the Church does, 
 fearful punishments for adultery were needful. And formerly 
 that was what was done. The cloister or death sums up early 
 legislation. But since then practice has modified the law, as 
 is always the case. The throne served as a hotbed for adul- 
 tery, and the increase of this inviting crime marks the decline 
 of the dogmas of the Catholic Church. In these days, in cases 
 where the Church now exacts no more than sincere repentance 
 from the erring wife, society is satisfied with a brand-mark 
 instead of an execution. The law still condemns the guilty, 
 but it no longer terrifies them. In short, there are two 
 standards of morals : that of the world, and that of the Code. 
 Where the Code is weak, as I admit with our dear Abbe, the 
 world is audacious and satirical. There are so few judges 
 who would not gladly have committed the fault against which 
 they hurl the rather stolid thunders of their "Inasmuch." The 
 world, which gives the lie to the law alike in its rejoicings, in 
 its habits, and in its pleasures, is severer than the Code and 
 the Church; the world punishes a blunder after encouraging 
 hypocrisy. The whole economy of the law on marriage seems 
 to me to require reconstruction from the bottom to the top. 
 The French law would be perfect perhaps if it excluded 
 daughters from inheriting.' 
 
 " 'We three among us know the question very thoroughly,' 
 said the Comte de Grandville with a laugh. 'I have a wife 
 I cannot live with. Serizy has a wife who will not live with 
 him. As for you. Octave, yours ran away from you. So we 
 three represent every case of the conjugal conscience, and, no 
 doubt, if ever divorce is brought in again, we shall form the 
 committee.' 
 
 "Octave's fork dropped on his glass, broke it, and broke his 
 
HONORINE 325 
 
 plate. He had turned as pale as death, and flashed a thun- 
 derous glare at M. de Grandville, by which he hinted at my 
 presence, and which I caught. 
 
 " 'Forgive me, my dear fellow. I did not see Maurice,' 
 the President went on. 'Serizy and I, after being the wit- 
 nesses to your marriage, became your accomplices; I did 
 not think I was committing an indiscretion in the presence 
 of these two venerable priests.' 
 
 "M. de Serizy changed the subject by relating all he had 
 done to please his wife without ever succeeding. The old man 
 concluded that it was impossible to regulate human sym- 
 pathies and antipathies; he maintained that social law was 
 never more perfect than when it was nearest to natural law. 
 Now, Nature takes no account of the affinities of souls; her 
 aim is fulfilled by the propagation of the species. Hence, the 
 Code, in its present form, was wise in leaving a wide latitude 
 to chance. The incapacity of daughters to inherit so long 
 as there were male heirs was an excellent provision, whether 
 to hinder the degeneration of the race, or to make house- 
 holds happier by abolishing scandalous unions and giving the 
 sole preference to moral qualities and beauty. 
 
 " 'But then,' he exclaimed, lifting his hand with a gesture 
 of disgust, 'how are we to perfect legislation in a country 
 which insists on bringing together seven or eight hundred 
 legislators ! — After all, if I am sacrificed,' he added, 'I have 
 a child to succeed me.' 
 
 " 'Setting aside all the religious question,' my uncle said, 
 'I would remark to your Excellency that Nature only owes 
 us life, and that it is society that owes us happiness. Are 
 you a father?' asked my uncle. 
 
 " 'And I — ^have I any children ?' said Comte Octave in a 
 hollow voice, and his tone made such an impression that there 
 was no more talk of wives or marriage. 
 
 "When coffee had been served, the two Counts and the two 
 priests stole away, seeing that poor Octave had fallen into a 
 fit of melancholy, which prevented his noticing their dis- 
 appearance. My patron was sitting in an armchair by the 
 fire, in the attitude of a man crushed. 
 
326 HONORINE 
 
 " 'You now know the secret of my life/ said he to me on 
 noticing that we were alone. 'After three years of married 
 life, one evening when I came in I found a letter in which 
 the Countess announced her flight. The letter did not lack 
 dignity, for it is in the nature of women to preserve some 
 virtues even when committing that horrible sin. — The story 
 now is that my wife went abroad in a ship that was wrecked ; 
 she is supposed to be dead. I have lived alone for seven 
 years ! — Enough for this evening, Maurice. We will talk 
 of my situation when I have grown used to the idea of speak- 
 ing of it to you. When we suffer from a chronic disease, it 
 needs time to become accustomed to improvement. That im- 
 provement often seems to be merely another aspect of the eon- 
 plaint.' 
 
 "I went to bed greatly agitated; for the mystery, far from 
 being explained, seemed to me more obscure than ever. I 
 foresaw some strange drama indeed, for I understood that 
 there could be no vulgar difference between the woman the 
 Count could choose and such a character as his. The events 
 which had driven the Countess to leave a man so noble, so 
 amiable, so perfect, so loving, so worthy to be loved, must 
 have been singular, to say the least. M. de Grandville's re- 
 mark had been like a torch flung into the caverns over which 
 I had so long been walking; and though the flame lighted 
 them but dimly, my eyes could perceive their wide extent! 
 I could imagine the Count's sufferings without knowing their 
 depth or their bitterness. That sallow face, those parched 
 temples, those overwhelming studies, those moments of absent- 
 mindedness, the smallest details of the life of this married 
 bachelor, all stood out in luminous relief during the hour of 
 mental questioning, which is, as it were, the twilight before 
 sleep, and to which any man would have given himself up, as 
 I did. 
 
 "Oh ! how I loved my poor master ! He seemed to me sublime. 
 I read a poem of melancholy, I saw perpetual activity in the 
 heart I had accused of being torpid. Must not supreme grief 
 always come at last to stagnation ? Had this judge, who had 
 
HONORINE S27 
 
 SO much in his power, ever revenged himself ? Was he feeding 
 himself on her long agony ? Is it not a remarkable thing in 
 Paris to keep anger always seething for ten years? What 
 had Octave done since this great misfortune — for the separa- 
 tion of husband and wife is a great misfortune in our day, 
 when domestic life has become a social question, which it 
 never was of old ? 
 
 '^We allowed a few days to pass on the watch, for great 
 sorrows have a diffidence of their own ; but at last, one even- 
 ing, the Count said in a grave voice : 
 
 " 'Stay.' 
 
 "This, as nearly as may be, is his story. 
 
 " 'My father had a ward, rich and lovely, who was sixteen 
 at the time when I came back from college to live in this old 
 house. Honorine, who had been brought up by my mother, 
 was just awaking to life. Full of grace and of childish ways, 
 she dreamed of happiness as she would have dreamed of 
 jewels ; perhaps happiness seemed to her the jewel of the soul. 
 Her piety was not free from puerile pleasures ; for everything, 
 even religion, was poetry to her ingenuous heart. She looked 
 to the future as a perpetual fete. Innocent and pure, no 
 delirium had disturbed her dream. Shame and grief had 
 never tinged her cheek nor moistened her eye. She did not 
 even inquire into the secret of her involuntary emotions on a 
 fine spring day. And then, she felt that she was weak and 
 destined to obedience, and she awaited marriage without wish- 
 ing for it. Her smiling imagination knew nothing of the cor- 
 ruption — necessary perhaps — which literature imparts by 
 depicting the passions; she knew nothing of the world, and 
 was ignorant of all the dangers of society. The dear child 
 had suffered so little that she had not even developed her 
 courage. In short, her guilelessness would have led her to 
 walk fearless among serpents, like the ideal figure of Inno- 
 cence a painter once created. We lived together like two 
 brothers. 
 
 " 'At the end of a year I said to her one day, in the garden 
 
328 HONOKINE 
 
 of this house, by the basin, as we stood throwing crumbs to the 
 fish: 
 
 " ' "Would you like that we should be married? With me 
 you eould do whatever you please, while another man would 
 make you unhappy." 
 
 " ' "Mamma," said she to my mother, who came out to join 
 us, "Octave and I have agreed to be married " 
 
 " ' 'TV^hat ! at seventeen ?" said my mother. "IsTo ; you 
 must wait eighteen months ; and if eighteen months hence you 
 like each other, well, your birth and fortunes are equal, you 
 can make a marriage which is suitable, as well as being a love 
 match." 
 
 " 'When I was six-and-twenty, and Honorine nineteen, we 
 were married. Our respect for my father and mother, old 
 folks of the Bourbon Court, hindered us from making this 
 house fashionable, or renewing the furniture ; we lived on, as 
 we had done in the past, as children. However, I went into 
 society; I initiated my wife into the world of fashion; and I 
 regarded it as one of my duties to instruct her. 
 
 " 'I recognized afterwards that marriages contracted under 
 such circumstances as ours bear in themselves a rock against 
 which many affections are wrecked, many prudent calcula- 
 tions, many Kves. The husband becomes a pedagogue, or, if 
 you like, a professor, and love perishes under the rod which, 
 sooner or later, gives pain; for a young and handsome wife, 
 at once discreet and laughter-loving, will not accept any 
 superiority above that with which she is endowed by nature. 
 Perhaps I was in the wrong ? During the difficult beginnings 
 of a household I, perhaps, assumed a magisterial tone? On 
 the other hand, I may have made the mistake of trusting too 
 entirely to that artless nature; I kept no watch over the 
 Countess, in whom revolt seemed to me impossible? Alas! 
 neither in politics nor in domestic life has it yet been ascer- 
 tained whether empires and happiness are wrecked by too 
 much confidence or too much severity ! Perhaps, again, the 
 husband failed to realize Honorine's girlish dreams? Who 
 can tell, while happy days last, what precepts he has neg- 
 lected?' 
 
HONORINE 829 
 
 "I remember only the broad outlines of the reproaches the 
 Count addressed to himself, with all the good faith of an 
 anatomist seeking the cause of a disease which might be over- 
 looked by his brethren ; but his merciful indulgence struck me 
 then as really worthy of that of Jesus Christ when He 
 rescued the woman taken in adultery. 
 
 " 'It was eighteen months after my father's death — ^my 
 mother followed him to the tomb in a few months — when the 
 fearful night came which surprised me by Honorine's fare- 
 well letter. What poetic delusion had seduced my wife ? Was 
 it through her senses ? Was it the magnetism of misfortune 
 or of genius ? Which of these powers had taken her by storm 
 or misled her ? — I would not know. The blow was so terrible, 
 that for a month I remained stunned. Afterwards, reflection 
 counseled me to continue in ignorance, and Honorine's mis- 
 fortunes have since taught me too much about all these things. 
 — So far, Maurice, the story is commonplace enough ; but one 
 word will change it all : I love Honorine, I have never ceased 
 to worship her. From the day when she left me I have lived 
 on memory ; one by one I recall the pleasures for which Honor- 
 ine no doubt had no taste. 
 
 " 'Oh !' said he, seeing the amazement in my eyes, 'do not 
 make a hero of me, do not think me such a fool, as a Colonel 
 of the Empire would say, as to have sought no diversion. 
 Alas, my boy! I was either too young or too much in love; 
 I have not in the whole world met with another woman. 
 After frightful struggles with myself, I tried to forget ; money 
 in hand, I stood on the very threshold of infidelity, but there 
 the memory of Honorine rose before me like a white statue. 
 As I recalled the infinite delicacy of that exquisite skin, 
 through which the blood might be seen coursing and the nerves 
 quivering ; as I saw in fancy that ingenuous face, as guileless 
 on the eve of my sorrows as on the day when I said to her, 
 "Shall we marry?" as I remembered a heavenly fragrance, 
 the very odor of virtue, and the light in her eyes, the pretti- 
 ness of her movements, I fled like a man preparing to violate 
 a tomb, who sees emerging from it the transfigured soul of the 
 
330 HONORINE 
 
 dead. At consultations, in Court, by night, I dream so in- 
 cessantly of Honorine that only by excessive strength of mind 
 do I succeed in attending to what I am doing and saying. 
 This is the secret of my labors. 
 
 " 'Well, I felt no more anger with her than a father can 
 feel on seeing his beloved child in some danger it has im- 
 prudently rushed into. I understood that I had made a 
 poem of my wife — a poem I delighted in with such intoxica- 
 tion, that I fancied she shared the intoxication. Ah ! Maurice, 
 an indiscriminating passion in a husband is a mistake that 
 may lead to any crime in a wife. I had no doubt left all the 
 faculties of this child, loved as a child, entirely unemployed; 
 I had perhaps wearied her with my love before the hour of 
 loving had struck for her ! Too young to understand that in 
 the constancy of the wife lies the germ of the mother's de- 
 votion, she mistook this first test of marriage for life itself, 
 and the refractory child cursed life, unknown to me, not dar- 
 ing to complain to me, out of sheer modesty perhaps ! In so 
 cruel a position she would be defenceless against any man 
 who stirred her deeply. — And I, so wise a judge as they say — 
 I, who have a kind heart, but whose mind was absorbed — I 
 understood too late these unwritten laws of the woman's code, 
 I read them by the light of the fire that wrecked my roof. 
 Then I constituted my heart a tribunal by virtue of the law, 
 for the law makes the husband a judge : I acquitted my wife, 
 and I condemned myself. But love took possession of me as a 
 passion, the mean, despotic passion which comes over some old 
 men. At this day I love the absent Honorine as a man of 
 sixty loves a woman whom he must possess at any cost, and yet 
 I feel the strength of a young man. I have the insolence of 
 the old man and the reserve of a boy. — My dear fellow, 
 society only laughs at such a desperate conjugal predicament. 
 Where it pities a lover, it regards a husband as ridiculously 
 inept; it makes sport of those who cannot keep the woman 
 they have secured under the canopy of the Church, and before 
 the Maire's scarf of office. And I had to keep silence. 
 
 " 'S^rizy is happy. His indulgence allows him to see his 
 
HONORINB 331 
 
 wife; he can protect and defend her; and, as he adores her, 
 he knows all the perfect joys of a benefactor whom nothing 
 can disturb, not even ridicule, for he pours it himself on his 
 fatherly pleasures. "I remain married only for my wife's 
 sake," he said to me one day on coming out of court. 
 
 " 'But I — I have nothing ; I have not even to face ridicule, 
 I who live solely on a love which is starving ! I who can never 
 find a word to say to a woman of the world ! I who loathe 
 prostitution ! I who am faithful under a spell ! — But for my 
 religious faith, I should have killed myself. I have defied the 
 gulf of hard work ; I have thrown myself into it, and come out 
 again alive, fevered, burning, bereft of sleep ! ' 
 
 "I cannot remember all the words of this eloquent man, to 
 whom passion gave an eloquence indeed so far above that of 
 the pleader that, as I listened to him, I, like him, felt my 
 cheeks wet with tears. You may conceive of my feelings 
 when, after a pause, during which we dried them away, he 
 finished his story with this revelation : — 
 
 " 'This is the drama of my soul, but it is not the actual 
 living drama which is at this moment being acted in Paris ! 
 The interior drama interests nobody. I know it ; and you will 
 one day admit that it is so, you, vi^ho at this moment shed 
 tears with me; no one can burden his heart or his skin with 
 another's pain. The measure of our sufferings is in our- 
 selves. — You even understand my sorrows only by very vague 
 analogy. Could you see me calming the most violent frenzy 
 of despair by the contemplation of a miniature in which I can 
 see and kiss her brow, the smile on her lips, the shape of her 
 face, can breathe the whiteness of her skin ; which enables me 
 almost to feel, to play with the black masses of her curling 
 hair? — Could you see me when I leap with hope — when I 
 writhe under the myriad darts of despair — when I tramp 
 through the mire of Paris to quell my irritation by fatigue ? 
 I have fits of collapse comparable to those of a consumptive 
 patient, moods of wild hilarity, terrors as of a murderer who 
 meets a sergeant of police. In short, my life is a continual 
 paroxysm of fears, joy, and dejection. 
 
332 HONORINE 
 
 "'As to the drama — it is this. You imagine that I am 
 occupied with the Council of State, the Chamber, the Courts, 
 Politics. — Why, dear me, seven hours at night are enough 
 for all that, so much are my faculties overwrought by the life 
 I lead ! Honorine is my real concern. To recover my wife 
 is my only study; to guard her in her cage, without her sus- 
 pecting that she is in my power ; to satisfy her needs, to supply 
 the little pleasure she allows herself, to be always about her 
 like a sylph without allowing her to see or to suspect me, for 
 if she did, the future would be lost, — that is my life, my true 
 life. — For seven years I have never gone to bed without going 
 first to see the light of her night-lamp, or her shadow on the 
 window curtains. 
 
 " 'She left my house, choosing to take nothing but the dress 
 she wore that day. The child carried her magnanimity to the 
 point of folly! Consequently, eighteen months after her 
 flight she was deserted by her lover, who was appalled by the 
 cold, cruel, sinister, and revolting aspect of poverty — the 
 coward! The man had, no doubt, counted on the easy and 
 luxurious life in Switzerland or Italy which fine ladies in- 
 dulge in when they leave their husbands. Honorine has sixty 
 thousand francs a year of her own. The wretch left the dear 
 creature expecting an infant, and without a penny. In the 
 month of November 1820 I found means to persuade the best 
 accoucheur in Paris to play the part of a humble suburban 
 apothecary. I induced the priest of the parish in which 
 the Countess was living to supply her needs as though he were 
 performing an act of charity. Then to hide my wife, to 
 secure her against discovery, to find her a housekeeper who 
 would be devoted to me and be my intelligent confidante — it 
 was a task worthy of Figaro! You may suppose that to 
 discover where my wife had taken refuge I had only to make 
 up my mind to it. 
 
 " 'After three months of desperation rather than despair, 
 the idea of devoting myself to Honorine with God only in 
 my secret, was one of those poems which occur only to the 
 heart of a lover through life and death! Love must have 
 
HONORINE 333 
 
 its daily food. And ought I not to protect this child, whose 
 guilt was the outcome of my imprudence, against fresh disaster 
 — to fulfil my partj in short, as a guardian angel ? — At the age 
 of seven months her infant died, happily for her and for me. 
 For nine months more my wife lay between life and death, 
 deserted at the time when she most needed a manly arm ; but 
 this arm,' said he, holding out his own with a gesture of 
 angelic dignity, 'was extended over her head. Honorine was 
 nursed as she would have been in her own home. When, on 
 her recovery, she asked how and by whom she had been assisted, 
 she was told — "By the Sisters of Charity in the neighborhood 
 — by the Maternity Society — ^by the parish priest, who took an 
 interest in her." 
 
 " 'This woman, whose pride amounts to a vice, has shown 
 a power of resistance in misfortune, which on some evenings 
 I call the obstinacy of a mule. Honorine was bent on earn- 
 ing her living. My wife works ! For five years past I have 
 lodged her in the Rue Saint-Maur, in a charming little house, 
 where she makes artificial flowers and articles of fashion. 
 She believes that she sells the product of her elegant fancy- 
 work to a shop, where she is so well paid that she makes twenty 
 francs a day, and in these six years she has never had a mo- 
 ment's suspicion. She pays for everything she needs at about 
 the third of its value, so that on six thousand francs a year 
 she lives as if she had fifteen thousand. She is devoted to 
 flowers, and pays a hundred crowns to a gardener, who costs 
 me twelve hundred in wages, and sends me in a bill for two 
 thousand francs every three months. I have promised the 
 man a market-garden with a house on it close to the porter's 
 lodge in the Eue Saint-Maur. I hold this ground in the 
 name of a clerk of the law courts. The smallest indis- 
 cretion would ruin the gardener's prospects. Honorine has 
 her little house, a garden, and a splendid hothouse, for a rent 
 of flve hundred francs a year. There she lives under the 
 name of her housekeeper, Madame Gobain, the old woman 
 of impeccable discretion whom I was so lucky as to find, and 
 whose afEection Honorine has won. But her zeal, like that of 
 
334 HONORINE 
 
 the gardener, is kept hot by the promise of reward at the mo- 
 ment of success. The porter and his wife cost me dreadfully 
 dear for the same reasons. However, for three years Honorine 
 has been happy, believing that she owes to her own toil all the 
 luxury of ilowers, dress, and comfort. 
 
 " 'Oh ! I know what you are about to say,' cried the Count, 
 seeing a question in my eyes and on my lips. 'Yes, yes; I 
 have made the attempt. My wife was formerly living in the 
 Faubourg Saint-Antoine. One day when, from what Go- 
 bain told me, I believed in some chance of a reconciliation, 
 I wrote by post a letter, in which I tried to propitiate my 
 wife — a letter written and re- written twenty times ! I will 
 not describe my agonies. I went from the Eue Payenne to 
 the Rue de Eeuilly like a condemned wretch going from the 
 Palais de Justice to his execution, but he goes on a cart, and 
 I was on foot. It was dark — there was a fog; I went to meet 
 Madame Gobain, who was to come and tell me what my wife 
 had done. Honorine, on recognizing my writing, had thrown 
 the letter into the fire without reading it. — "Madame Gobain," 
 she had exclaimed, "I leave this to-morrow." 
 
 " 'What a dagger-stroke was this to a man who found in- 
 exhaustible pleasure in the trickery by which he gets the 
 finest Lyons velvet at twelve francs a yard, a pheasant, a fish, 
 a dish of fruit, for a tenth of their value, for a woman so 
 ignorant as to believe that she is paying ample wages with two 
 hundred and fifty francs to Madame Gobain, a cook fit for a 
 bishop. 
 
 " 'You have sometimes found me rubbing my hands in the 
 enjoyment of a sort of happiness. Well, I had just succeeded 
 in some ruse worthy of the stage. I had just deceived my wife 
 — I had sent her by a purchaser of wardrobes an Indian shawl, 
 to be offered to her as the property of an actress who had 
 hardly worn it, but in which I — the solemn lawyer whom you 
 know — had wrapped myself for a night! In short, my life 
 at this day may be summed up in the two words which ex- 
 press the extremes of torment — I love, and I wait ! I have 
 in Madame Gobain a faithful spy on the heart I worship. I 
 
HONORINE 335 
 
 go every evening to chat with the old woman, to hear from her 
 all that Honorine has done during the day, the lightest word 
 she has spoken, for a single exclamation might betray to me 
 the secrets of that soul which is wilfully deaf and dumb. 
 Honorine is pious ; she attends the Church services and prays, 
 but she has never been to confession or taken the Communion ; 
 she foresees what a. priest would tell her. She will not listen 
 to the advice, to the injunction, that she should return to me. 
 This horror of me overwhelms me, dismays me, for I have 
 never done her the smallest harm. I have always been kind 
 to her. Granting even that I may have been a little hasty when 
 teaching her, that my man's irony may have hurt her legiti- 
 mate girlish pride, is that a reason for persisting in a de- 
 termination which only the most implacable hatred could 
 have inspired? Honorine has never told Madame Gobain 
 who she is ; she keeps absolute silence as to her marriage, so 
 that the worthy and respectable woman can never speak a 
 word in my favor, for she is the only person in the house who 
 knows my secret. The others know nothing; they live under 
 the awe caused by the name of the Prefect of Police, and their 
 respect for the power of a Minister. Hence it is impossible 
 for me to penetrate that heart ; the citadel is mine, but I can- 
 not get into it. I have not a single means of action. An act 
 of violence would ruin me for ever. 
 
 " 'How can I argue against reasons of which I know noth- 
 ing ? Should I write a letter, and have it copied by a public 
 writer, and laid before Honorine ? But that would be to run 
 the risk of a third removal. The last cost me fifty thousand 
 francs. The purchase was made in the first instance in the 
 name of the secretary whom you succeeded. The unhappy 
 man, who did not know how lightly I sleep, was detected by 
 me in the act of opening a box in which I had put the private 
 agreement; I coughed, and he was seized with a panic; next 
 day I compelled him to sell the house to the man in whose 
 name it now stands, and I turned him out. 
 
 " 'If it were not that I feel all my noblest faculties as a 
 man satisfied, happy, expansive; if the part I am playing 
 
336 HONORINE 
 
 were not that of divine fatherhood; if I did not drink in 
 delight by every pore, there are moments when I should be- 
 lieve that I was a monomaniac. Sometimes at night I hear 
 the jingling bells of madness. I dread the violent transitions 
 from a feeble hope, which sometimes shines and flashes up, 
 to complete despair, falling as low as man can fall. A few 
 days since I was seriously considering the horrible end of the 
 story of Lovelace and Clarissa Harlowe, and saying to myself, 
 If Honorine were the mother of a child of mine, must she not 
 necessarily return under her husband's roof ? 
 
 " 'And I have such complete faith in a happy future, that 
 ten months ago I bought and paid for one of the handsomest 
 houses in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. If I win back 
 Honorine, I will not allow her to see this house again, nor 
 the room from which she fled. I mean to place my idol in a 
 new temple, where she may feel that life is altogether new. 
 That house is being made a marvel of elegance and taste. I 
 have been told of a poet who, being almost mad with love for 
 an actress, bought the handsomest bed in Paris without 
 knowing how the actress would reward his passion. Well, 
 one of the coldest of lawyers, a man who is supposed to be 
 the gravest adviser of the Crown, was stirred to the depths 
 of his heart by that anecdote. The orator of the Legislative 
 Chamber can understand the poet who fed his ideal on 
 material possibilities. Three days before the arrival of Maria 
 Louisa, Napoleon flung himself on his wedding bed at Com- 
 piegne. All stupendous passions have the same impulses. 
 I love as a poet — as an emperor !' 
 
 "As I heard the last words, I believed that Count Octave's 
 fears were realized; he had risen, and was walking up and 
 down, and gesticulating, but he stopped as if shocked by the 
 vehemence of his own words. 
 
 " 'I am very ridiculous,' he added, after a long pause, look- 
 ing at me, as if craving a glance of pity. 
 
 " 'Ko, monsieur, you are very unhappy.' 
 
 " 'Ah yes !' said he, taking up the thread of his con- 
 fidences. 'From the violence of my speech you may, you 
 
HONOEINE 337 
 
 must believe in the intensity of a physical passion which for 
 nine years has absorbed all my faculties ; but that is nothing 
 in comparison with the worship I feel for the soul, the mind, 
 the heart, all in that woman that is not mere woman; the 
 enchanting divinities in the train of Love, with whom we pass 
 our life, and who form the daily poem of a fugitive delight. 
 By a phenomenon of retrospection I see now the graces of 
 Honorine's mind and heart, to which I paid little heed in the 
 time of my happiness — like all who are happy. From day 
 to day I have appreciated the extent of my loss, discovering 
 the exquisite gifts of that capricious and refractory young 
 creature who has grown so strong and so proud under the 
 heavy hand of poverty and the shock of the most cowardly 
 desertion. And that heavenly blossom is fading in solitude 
 and hiding ! — Ah ! The law of which we were speaking,' he 
 went on with bitter irony, 'the law is a squad of gendarmes 
 — my wife seized and dragged away by force! Would not 
 that be to triumph over a corpse? Religion has no hold on 
 her; she craves its poetry, she prays, but she does not listen 
 to the commandments of the Church. I, for my part, have 
 exhausted everything in the way of mercy, of kindness, of love ; 
 I am at my wits' end. Only one chance of victory is left to 
 me; the cunning and patience with which bird-catchers at 
 last entrap the wariest birds, the swiftest, the most capricious, 
 and the rarest. Hence, Maurice, when M. de Grandville's 
 indiscretion betrayed to you the secret of my life, I ended 
 by regarding this incident as one of the decrees of fate, one 
 of the utterances for which gamblers listen and pray in the 
 midst of their most impassioned play. . . . Have you 
 enough affection for me to show me romantic devotion ?' 
 
 " 'I see what you are coming to. Monsieur le Comte,' said I, 
 interrupting him ; 'I guess your purpose. Your first secretary 
 tried to open your deed box. I know the heart of your second 
 — he might fall in love with your wife. And can you devote 
 him to destruction by sending him into the fire? Can any 
 one put his hand into a brazier without burning it ?' 
 
 " 'You are a foolish boy,' replied the Count. 'I will send 
 
338 HONOEINE 
 
 you well gloved. It is no secretary of mine that will be 
 lodged in the Eue Saint-Maur in the little garden-house which 
 I have at his disposal. It is my distant cousin, Baron de 
 I'Hostal, a lawyer high in oflSce . . ." 
 
 "After a moment of silent surprise, I heard the gate bell 
 ring, and a carriage came into the courtyard. Presently the 
 footman announced Madame de Courteville and her daughter. 
 The Count had a large family connection on his mother's 
 side. Madame de Courteville, his cousin, was the widow of a 
 judge on the bench of the Seine division, who had left her a 
 daughter and no fortune whatever. What could a woman of 
 nine-and-twenty be in comparison with a young girl of twenty, 
 as lovely as imagination could wish for an ideal mistress ? 
 
 " 'Baron, and Master of Appeals, till you get something 
 better, and this old house settled on her, — would not you have 
 enough good reasons for not falling in love with the Countess ?' 
 he said to me in a whisper, as he took me by the hand and in- 
 troduced me to Madame de Courteville and her daughter. 
 
 "I was dazzled, not so much by these advantages of which 
 I had never dreamed, but by Ameliede Courteville, whose beauty 
 was thrown into relief by one of those well-chosen toilets 
 which a mother can achieve for a daughter when she wants 
 to see her married. 
 
 "But I will not talk of myself," said the Consul after a 
 pause. 
 
 "Three weeks later I went to live in the gardener's cottage, 
 which had been cleaned, repaired, and furnished with the 
 celerity which is explained by three words: Paris; French 
 workmen ; money ! I was as much in love as the Count could 
 possibly desire as a security. Would the prudence of a young 
 man of five-and-twenty be equal to the part I was undertaking, 
 involving a friend's happiness ? To settle that matter, I may 
 confess that I counted very much on my uncle's advice; for 
 I had been authorized by the Count to take him into con- 
 fidence in any ease where I deemed his interference necessary. 
 I engaged a garden; I devoted myself to horticulture; I 
 worked frantically, like a man whom nothing can divert, turn- 
 
HONORINE 339 
 
 ing up the soil of the market-garden, and appropriating the 
 ground to the culture of flowers. Like the maniacs of Eng- 
 land, or of Holland, I gave it out that I was devoted to one 
 kind of flower, and especially grew dahlias, collecting every 
 variety. You will understand that my conduct, even in the 
 smallest details, was laid down for me by the Count, whose 
 whole intellectual powers were directed to the most trifling 
 incidents of the tragi-comedy enacted in the Eue Saint-Maur. 
 As soon as the Countess had gone to bed, at about eleven at 
 night. Octave, Madame Gobain, and I sat in council. I heard 
 the old woman's report to the Count of his wife's least pro- 
 ceedings during the daj'. He inquired into everjrthing: her 
 meals, her occupations, her frame of mind, her plans for the 
 morrow, the flowers she proposed to imitate. I understood 
 what love in despair may be when it is the threefold passion of 
 the heart, the mind, and the senses. Octave lived only for 
 that hour. 
 
 "During two months, while my work in the garden lasted, 
 I never set eyes on the little house where my fair neigh- 
 bor dwelt. I had not even inquired whether I had a neighbor, 
 though the Countess' garden was divided from mine by a 
 paling, along which she had planted cypress trees already 
 four feet high. One fine morning Madame Gobain announced 
 to her mistress, as a disastrous piece of news, the intention, 
 expressed by an eccentric creature who had become her neigh- 
 bor, of building a wall between the two gardens, at the end of 
 the year. I will say nothing of the curiosity which consumed 
 me to see the Countess ! The wish almost extinguished my 
 budding love for Amelie de CourteviUe. My scheme for 
 building a wall was indeed a serious threat. There would be 
 no more fresh air for Honorine, whose garden would then be 
 a sort of narrow alley shut in between my wall and her own 
 little house. This dwelling, formerly a summer villa, was like 
 a house of cards ; it was not more than thirty feet deep, and 
 about a hundred feet long. The garden front, painted in the 
 German fashion, imitated a trellis with flowers up to the 
 second floor, and was a really charming example of the Pom- 
 
340 HONOKINB 
 
 padour style, so well called rococo. A long avenue of limes 
 led up to it. The gardens of the pavilion and my plot of 
 ground were in the shape of a hatchet, of which this avenue 
 was the handle. My wall would cut away three-quarters of 
 the hatchet. 
 
 "The Countess was in despair. 
 
 "'My good Gobain/ said she, 'what sort of man is this 
 florist?' 
 
 " 'On my word,' said the housekeeper, 'I do not know 
 whether it will be possible to tame him. He seems to have a 
 horror of women. He is the nephew of a Paris cure. I have 
 seen the uncle but once ; a fine old man of sixty, very ugly, but 
 very amiable. It is quite possible that this priest encourages 
 his nephew, as they say in the neighborhood, in his love of 
 flowers, that nothing worse may happen ' 
 
 " 'Why— what ?' 
 
 "'Well, your neighbor is a little cracked!' said Gobain, 
 tapping her head ! 
 
 "Now a harmless lunatic is the only man whom no woman 
 ever distrusts in the matter of sentiment. You will see how 
 wise the Count had been in choosing this disguise for me. 
 
 " 'What ails him then ?' asked the Countess. 
 
 " 'He has studied too hard,' replied Gobain ; 'he has turned 
 misanthropic. And he has his reasons for disliking women — 
 well, if you want to know all that is said about him ' 
 
 " 'Well,' said Honorine, 'madmen frighten me less than sane 
 folks ; I will speak to him myself ! Tell him that I beg him to 
 come here. If I do not succeed, I will send for the cure.' 
 
 "The day after this conversation, as I was walking along 
 my graveled path, I caught sight of the half -opened curtains 
 on the first fioor of the little house, and of a woman's face 
 curiously peeping out. Madame Gobain called me. I hastily 
 glanced at the Countess' house, and by a rude shrug ex- 
 pressed, 'What do I care for your mistress !' 
 
 " 'Madame,' said Gobain, called upon to give an account of 
 her errand, 'the madman bid me leave him in peace, saying 
 that even a charcoal seller is master in his own premises, es- 
 pecially when he has no wife.' 
 
HONORINE 341 
 
 " 'He is perfectly rigM/ said the Countess. 
 
 " 'Yes, but he ended by saying, "I will go," when I told him 
 that he would greatly distress a lady living in retirement, 
 who found her greatest solace in growing flowers/ 
 
 "Next day a signal from Gobain informed me that I was ex- 
 pected. After the Countess' breakfast, when she was walking 
 to and fro in front of her house, I broke out some palings, 
 and went towards her. I had dressed myself like a country- 
 man, in an old pair of gray flannel trousers, heavy wooden 
 shoes, and shabby shooting coat, a peaked cap on my head, 
 a ragged bandana round my neck, hands soiled with mould, 
 and a dibble in my hand.- 
 
 " 'Madame,' said the housekeeper, 'this good man is your 
 neighbor.' 
 
 "The Countess was not alarmed. I saw at last the woman 
 whom her own conduct and her husband's confidences had 
 made me so curious to meet. It was in the early days of 
 May. The air was pure, the weather serene; the verdure 
 of the first foliage, the fragrance of spring formed a setting 
 for this creature of sorrow. As I then saw Honorine I under- 
 stood Octave's passion and the truthfulness of his description, 
 'A heavenly flower !' 
 
 "Her pallor was what first struck me by its peculiar tone of 
 white — for there are as many tones of white as of red or blue. 
 On looking at the Countess, the eye seemed to feel that tender 
 skin, where the blood flowed in the blue veins. At the slightest 
 emotion the blood mounted under the surface in rosy flushes 
 like a cloud. When we met, the sunshine, filtering through 
 the light foliage of the acacias, shed on Honorine the pale 
 gold, ambient glory in which Eaphael and Titian, alone of 
 all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin. Her brown 
 eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity ; their brightness 
 seemed reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes. 
 Merely by lifting her delicate eyelids, Honorine could cast a 
 spell; there was so much feeling, dignity, terror, or contempt 
 in her way of raising or dropping those veils of the soul. She 
 could freeze or give life by a look. Her light-brown hair. 
 
342 HONORINE 
 
 carelessly knotted on her head, outlined a poet's brow, high, 
 powerful, and dreamy. The mouth was wholly voluptuous. 
 And to crown all by a grace, rare in France, though common 
 in Italy, all the lines and forms of the head had a stamp of 
 nobleness which would defy the outrages of time. 
 
 "Though slight, Honorine was not thin, and her figure 
 struck me as being one that might revive love when it believed 
 itself exhausted. She perfectly represented the idea conveyed 
 by the word mignonne, for she was one of those pliant little 
 women who allow themselves to be taken up, petted, set down, 
 and taken up again like a kitten. Her small feet, as I heard 
 them on the gravel, made a light sound essentially their own, 
 that harmonized with the rustle of her dress, producing a 
 feminine music which stamped itself on the heart, and re- 
 mained distinct from the footfall of a thousand other women. 
 Her gait bore all the quarterings of her race with so much 
 pride, that, in the street, the least respectful working man 
 would have made way for her. Gay and tender, haughty and 
 imposing, it was impossible to understand her, excepting as 
 gifted with these apparently incompatible qualities, which, 
 nevertheless, had left her still a child. But it was a child 
 who might be as strong as an angel ; and, like the angel, once 
 hurt in her nature, she would be implacable. 
 
 "Coldness on that face must no doubt be death to those 
 on whom her eyes had smiled, for whom her set lips had 
 parted, for those whose soul had drunk in the melody of that 
 voice, lending to her words the poetry of song by its peculiar 
 intonation. Inhaling the perfume of violets that accom- 
 panied her, I understood how the memory of this wife had 
 arrested the Count on the threshold of debauchery, and how 
 impossible it would be ever to forget a creature who really 
 was a flower to the touch, a flower to the eye, a flower of 
 fragrance, a heavenly flower to the soul. . . . Honorine 
 inspired devotion, chivalrous devotion, regardless of reward. 
 A man on seeing her must say to himself : 
 
 " 'Think, and I will divine your thought ; speak, and I will 
 obey. If my life, sacrificed in torments, can procure you one 
 
HONOEINE 343 
 
 day's happiness, take my life ; I will smile like a martyr at the 
 stake, for I shall offer that day to God, as a token to which a 
 father responds on recognizing a gift to his child.' Many 
 women study their expression, and succeed in producing 
 effects similar to those which would have struck you at first 
 sight of the Countess; only, in her, it all was the outcome 
 of a delightful nature, that inimitable nature went at once 
 to the heart. If I tell you all this, it is because her soul, her 
 thoughts, the exquisiteness of her heart, are all we are con- 
 cerned with, and you would have blamed me if I had not 
 sketched them for you. 
 
 "I was very near forgetting my part as a half-crazy lout, 
 clumsy, and by no means chivalrous. 
 
 " 'I am told, madame, that you are fond of flowers ?' 
 
 " 'I am an artificial flower-maker,' said she. 'After grow- 
 ing flowers, I imitate them, like a mother who is artist enough 
 to have the pleasure of painting portraits of her children. 
 . . . That is enough to tell you that I am poor and unable 
 to pay for the concession I am anxious to obtain from you ?' 
 
 " TJut how,' said I, as grave as a Judge, 'can a lady of such 
 rank as yours would seem to be, ply so humble a calling? 
 Have you, like me, good reasons for employing your fingers 
 so as to keep your brains from working?' 
 
 " 'Let us stick to the question of the wall,' said she, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " 'Why, we have begun at the foundations,' said I. 'Must 
 not I know which of us ought to yield to the other in behalf 
 of our suffering, or, if you choose, of our mania ? — Oh ! what 
 a charming clump of narcissus! They are as fresh as this 
 spring morning !' 
 
 "I assure you, she had made for herself a perfect museum 
 of flowers and shrubs, which none might see but the sun, and 
 of which the arrangement had been prompted by the genius 
 of an artist ; the most heartless of landlords must have treated 
 it with respect. The masses of plants, arranged according 
 to their height, or in single clumps, were really a joy to the 
 soul. This retired and solitary garden breathed comforting 
 
344 HONORINE 
 
 scentSj and suggested none but sweet thoughts and graceful, 
 nay, voluptuous pictures. On it was set that inscrutable sign- 
 manual, which our true character stamps on everything, as soon 
 as nothing compels us to obey the various hypocrisies, neces- 
 sary as they are, which Society insists on. I looked alternately 
 at the mass of narcissus and at the Countess, affecting to be 
 far more in love with the flowers than with her, to carry out 
 my part. 
 
 " 'So you are very fond of flowers ?' said she. 
 
 " 'They are,' I replied, 'the only beings that never disap- 
 point our cares and affection.' And I went on to deliver 
 such a diatribe while comparing botany and the world, that 
 we ended miles away from the dividing wall, and the Countess 
 must have supposed me to be a wretched and wounded sufferer 
 worthy of her pity. However, at the end of half an hour my 
 neighbor naturally brought me back to the point ; for women, 
 when they are not in love, have all the cold blood of an ex- 
 perienced attorney. 
 
 " 'If you insist on my leaving the paling,' said I, 'you will 
 learn all the secrets of gardening that I want to hide; I am 
 seeking to grow a blue dahlia, a blue rose; I am crazy for 
 blue flowers. Is not blue the favorite color of superior souls ? 
 We are neither of us really at home ; we might as well make 
 a little door of open railings to unite our gardens. . . . 
 You, too, are fond of flowers; you will see mine, I shall see 
 yours. If you receive no visitors at all, I, for my part, have 
 none but my uncle, the Cure of the White Friars.' 
 
 " 'Ko,' said she, 'I will give you the right to come into my 
 garden, my premises, at any hour. Come and welcome; you 
 will always be admitted as a neighbor with whom I hope to 
 keep on good terms. But I like my solitude too well to 
 burden it with any loss of independence.' 
 
 " 'As you please,' said I, and with one leap I was over the 
 paling. 
 
 " 'Fow, of what use would a door be?' said I, from my own 
 domain, turning round to the Countess, and mocking her 
 with a madman's gesture and grimace. 
 
HONORINB 345 
 
 "For a fortnight I seemed to take no heed of my neighbor. 
 Towards the end of May, one lovely evening, we happened 
 both to be out on opposite sides of the paling, both walking 
 slowly. Having reached the end, we could not help exchanging 
 a few civil words ; she found me in such deep dejection, lost 
 in such painful meditations, that she spoke to me of hope- 
 fulness, in brief sentences that sounded like the songs with 
 which nurses lull their babies. I then leaped the fence, 
 and found myself for the second time at her side. The 
 Countess led me into the house, wishing to subdue my sad- 
 ness. So at last I had penetrated the sanctuary where every- 
 thing was in harmony with the woman I have tried to de- 
 scribe to you. 
 
 "Exquisite simplicity reigned there. The interior of the 
 little house was just such a dainty box as the art of the 
 eighteenth century devised for the pretty profligacy of a fine 
 gentleman. The dining-room, on the ground floor, was 
 painted in fresco, with garlands of flowers, admirably and 
 marvelously executed. The staircase was charmingly 
 decorated in monochrome. The little drawing-room, opposite 
 the dining-room, was very much faded ; but the Countess had 
 hung it with panels of tapestry of fanciful designs, taken off 
 old screens. A bath-room came next. Upstairs there was 
 but one bedroom, with a dressing-room, and a library which 
 she used as her workroom. The kitchen was beneath in the 
 basement on which the house was raised, for there was a 
 flight of several steps outside. The balustrade of a balcony 
 in garlands a la Pompadour concealed the roof ; only the lead 
 cornices were visible. In this retreat one was a hundred 
 leagues from Paris. 
 
 "But for the bitter smile which occasionally played on the 
 beautiful red lips of this pale woman, it would have been 
 possible to believe that this violet buried in her thicket of 
 flowers was happy. In a few days we had reached a certain 
 degree of intimacy, the result of our close neighborhood and 
 of the Countess' conviction that I was indiiferent to women. 
 A look would have spoilt all, and I never allowed a thought 
 
346 HONORINE 
 
 of her to be seen in my eyes. Honorine chose to regard me as 
 an old friend. Her manner to me was the outcome of a kind 
 of pity. Her looks, her voice, her words, all showed that she 
 was a hundred miles away from the coquettish airs which 
 the strictest virtue might have allowed under such circum- 
 stances. She soon gave me the right to go into the pretty 
 workshop where she made her flowers, a retreat full of books 
 and curiosities, as smart as a boudoir where elegance em- 
 phasized the vulgarity of the tools of her trade. The Count- 
 ess had in the course of time poetized, as I may say, a thing 
 which is at the antipodes to poetry — a manufacture. 
 
 "Perhaps of all the work a woman can do, the making of 
 artificial flowers is that of which the details allow her to 
 display most grace. For coloring prints she must sit bent 
 over a table and devote herself, with some attention, to this 
 half painting. Embroidering tapestry, as diligently as a 
 woman must who is to earn her living by it, entails con- 
 sumption or curvature of the spine. Engraving music is one 
 of the most laborious, by the care, the minute exactitude, and 
 the intelligence it demands. Sewing and white embroidery 
 do not earn thirty sous a day. But the making of flowers 
 and light articles of wear necessitates a variety of movements, 
 gestures, ideas even, which do not take a pretty woman out of 
 her sphere; she is still herself; she may chat, laugh, sing, or 
 think. 
 
 "There was certainly a feeling for art in the way in which 
 the Countess arranged on a long deal table the myriad-colored 
 petals which were used in composing the flowers she was to 
 produce. The saucers of color were of white china, and 
 always clean, arranged in such order that the eye could at 
 once see the required shade in the scale of tints. Thus the 
 aristocratic artist saved time. A pretty little cabinet with a 
 hundred tiny drawers, of ebony inlaid with ivory, contained 
 the little steel moulds in which she shaped the leaves and some 
 forms of petals. A fine Japanese bowl held the paste, which 
 was never allowed to turn sour, and it had a fitted cover with a 
 hinge so easy that she could lift it with a finger-tip. The wire, 
 
HONORINE 34T 
 
 of iron and brass, lurked in a little drawer of the table be- 
 fore her. 
 
 "Under her eyes, in a Venetian glass, shaped like a flower- 
 cup on its stem, was the living model she strove to imitate. 
 She had a passion for achievement; she attempted the most 
 diSieult things, close racemes, the tiniest corollas, heaths, 
 nectaries of the most variegated hues. Her hands, as swift 
 as her thoughts, went from the table to the flower she was 
 making, as those of an accomplished pianist fly over the keys. 
 Her fingers seemed to be fairies, to use Perrault's expression, 
 so infinite were the different actions of twisting, fitting, and 
 pressure needed for the work, all hidden under grace of 
 movement, while she adapted each motion to the result with 
 the lucidity of instinct. 
 
 "I could not tire of admiring her as she shaped a flower 
 from the materials sorted before her, padding the wire stem 
 and adjusting the leaves. She displayed the genius of a 
 painter in her bold attempts; she copied faded flowers and 
 yellowing leaves; she struggled even with wildflowers, the 
 most artless of all, and the most elaborate in their simpli- 
 city. 
 
 " 'This art,' she would say, 'is in its infancy. If the women 
 of Paris had a little of the genius which the slavery of the ha- 
 rem brings out in Oriental women, they would lend a complete 
 language of flowers to the wreaths they wear on their head. To 
 please my own taste as an artist I have made drooping 
 flowers with leaves of the hue of Florentine bronze, such as are 
 found before or after the winter. Would not such a crown on 
 the head of a young woman whose Ufe is a failure have a 
 certain poetical fltness ? How many things a woman might 
 express by her head-dress! Are there not flowers for 
 drunken Bacchantes, flowers for gloomy and stern bigots, 
 pensive flowers for women who are bored? Botany, I be- 
 lieve, may be made to express every sensation and thought 
 of the soul, even the most subtle.' 
 
 "She would employ me to stamp out the leaves, cut up 
 material, and prepare wires for the stems. My affected desire 
 
348 HONOEINE 
 
 for occupation made me soon, stilful. We talked as we worked. 
 When I had nothing to do, I read new books to her, for I had 
 my part to keep up as a man weary of life, worn out with 
 griefs, gloomy, sceptical, and soured. My person led to ador- 
 able banter as to my purely physical resemblance — with the 
 exception of his club foot — to Lord Byron. It was tacitly 
 acknowledged that her own troubles, as to which she kept the 
 most profound silence, far outweighed mine, though the causes 
 I assigned for my misanthropy might have satisfied Young or 
 Job. 
 
 "I will say nothing of the feelings of shame which tor- 
 mented me as I inflicted on my heart, like the beggars in the 
 street, false wounds to excite the compassion of that enchant- 
 ing woman. I soon appreciated the extent of my devoted- 
 ness by learning to estimate the baseness of a spy. The 
 expressions of sympathy bestowed on me would have comforted 
 the greatest grief. This charming creature, weaned from the 
 world, and for so many years alone, having, besides love, 
 treasures of kindliness to bestow, offered these to me with 
 childlike effusiveness and such compassion as would inevitably 
 have filled with bitterness any profligate who should have 
 fallen in love with her ; for, alas, it was all charity, all sheer 
 pity. Her renunciation of love, her dread of what is called 
 happiness for women, she proclaimed with equal vehemence 
 and candor. These happy days proved to me that a woman's 
 friendship is far superior to her love. 
 
 "I suffered the revelations of my sorrows to be dragged 
 from me with as many grimaces as a young lady allows her- 
 self before sitting down to the piano, so conscious are they of 
 the annoyance that will follow. As you may imagine, the 
 necessity for overcoming my dislike to speak had induced the 
 Countess to strengthen the bonds of our intimacy; but she 
 found in me so exact a counterpart of her own antipathy to 
 love, that I fancied she was well content with the chance which 
 had brought to her desert island a sort of Man Friday. 
 Solitude was perhaps beginning to weigh on her. At the 
 same time, there was nothing of the coquette in her; nothing 
 
HONOEINB 349 
 
 survived of the woman ; she did not feel that she had a heart, 
 she told me, excepting in the ideal world where she found 
 refuge. I involuntarily compared these two lives — hers and 
 the Count's: — his, all activity, agitation, and emotion; hers, 
 all inaction, quiescence, and stagnation. The woman and the 
 man were admirably obedient to their nature. My mis- 
 anthropy allowed me to utter cynical sallies against men and 
 women both, and I indulged in them, hoping to bring Hon- 
 orine to the confidential point; but she was not to be caught 
 in any trap, and I began to understand that mulish obstinacy 
 which is commoner among women than is generally sup- 
 posed. 
 
 " 'The Orientals are right,' I said to her one evening, 
 'when they shut you up and regard you merely as the play- 
 things of their pleasure. Europe has been well punished for 
 having admitted you to form an element of society and for 
 accepting you on an equal footing. In my opinion, woman 
 is the most dishonorable and cowardly being to be found. 
 ISTay, and that is where her charm lies. Where would be the 
 pleasure of hunting a tame thing ? When once a woman has 
 inspired a man's passion, she is to him for ever sacred ; in his 
 eyes she is hedged round by an imprescriptible prerogative. 
 In men gratitude for past delights is eternal. Though he 
 should find his mistress grown old or unworthy, the woman 
 still has rights over his heart ; but to you women the man you 
 have loved is as nothing to you ; nay, more, he is unpardonable 
 in one thing — ^he lives on ! You dare not own it, but you all 
 have in your hearts the feeling which that popular calurmiy 
 called tradition ascribes to the Lady of the Tour de Nesle: 
 "What a pity it is that we cannot live on love as we live on 
 fruit, and that when we have had our fill, nothing should 
 survive but the remembrance of pleasure !" ' 
 
 " 'God has, no doubt, reserved such perfect bliss for Para- 
 dise,' said she. 'But,' she added, 'if your argument seems 
 to you very witty, to me it has the disadvantage of being 
 false. What can those women be who give themselves up to 
 a succession of loves ?' she asked, looking at me as the Virgin 
 
350 HONORINE 
 
 in Ingres' picture looks at Louis XIII. offering her his king- 
 dom. 
 
 " 'You are an actress in good faith/ said I, 'for you gave 
 me a look just now which would make the fame of an 
 actress. Still, lovely as you are, you have loved; ergo, you 
 forget.' 
 
 "'I!' she exclaimed, evading my question, 'I am not a 
 woman. I am a nun, and seventy-two years old !' 
 
 " 'Then, how can you so positively assert that you feel more 
 keenly than I ? Sorrow has but one form for women. The 
 only misfortunes they regard are disappointments of the 
 heart.' 
 
 "She looked at me sweetly, and, like all women when stuck 
 between the issues of a dilemma, or held in the clutches of 
 truth, she persisted, nevertheless, in her wilfulness. 
 
 " 'I am a nun,' she said, 'and you talk to me of a world 
 where I shall never again set foot.' 
 
 " 'Not even in thought ?' said I. 
 
 " 'Is the world so much to be desired ?' she replied. 'Oh ! 
 when my mind wanders, it goes higher. The angel of per- 
 fection, the beautiful angel Gabriel, often sings in my heart. 
 If I were rich, I should work, all the same, to keep me from 
 soaring too often on the many-tinted wings of the angel, and 
 wandering in the world of fancy. There are meditations 
 which are the ruin of us women ! I owe much peace of mind 
 to my flowers, though sometimes they fail to occupy me. On 
 some days I find my soul invaded by a purposeless expectancy ; 
 I cannot banish some idea which takes possession of me, 
 which seems to make my fingers clumsy. I feel that some 
 great event is impending, that my life is about to change; I 
 listen vaguely, I stare into the darkness, I have no liking for 
 my work, and after a thousand fatigues I find life once more 
 — everyday life. Is this a warning from heaven? I ask my- 
 ■clf ' 
 
 "After three months of this struggle between two diplo- 
 mates, concealed under the semblance of youthful melancholy, 
 and a woman whose disgust of life made her invulnerable, I 
 
HONOBINH 851 
 
 told the Count that it was impossible to drag this tortoise 
 out of her shell; it must be broken. The evening before, in 
 our last quite friendly discussion, the Countess had exclaimed : 
 
 " 'Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watch- 
 word of woman's charter: Liberty!' 
 
 "From that moment the Count left me free to act. 
 
 " 'I have been paid a hundred francs for the flowers and 
 caps I made this week !' Honorine exclaimed gleefully one 
 Saturday evening when I went to visit her in the little 
 sitting-room on the ground floor, which the unavowed pro- 
 prietor had had regilt. 
 
 "It was ten o'clock. The twilight of July and a glorious 
 moon lent us their misty light. Gusts of mingled per- 
 fumes soothed the soul; the Countess was clinking in her 
 hand the five gold pieces given to her by a supposititious 
 dealer in fashionable frippery, another of Octave's accom- 
 plices found for him by a judge, M. Popinot. 
 
 " 'I earn my living by amusing myself,' said she; 'I am free, 
 when men, armed with their laws, have tried to make us 
 slaves. Oh, I have transports of pride every Saturday ! In 
 short, I like M. Gaudissart's gold' pieces as much as Lord 
 Byron, your double, liked Mr. Murray's.' 
 
 " 'This is not becoming in a woman,' said I. 
 
 " 'Pooh ! Am I a woman ? I am a boy gifted with a soft 
 soul, that is all ; a boy whom no woman can torture ' 
 
 "Tour life is the negation of your whole being,' I re- 
 plied. 'What? You, on whom God has lavished His 
 choicest treasures of love and beauty, do you never wish ' 
 
 '"For what?' said she, somewhat disturbed by a speech 
 which, for the first time, gave the lie to the part I had 
 assumed. 
 
 "'For a pretty little child, with curling hair, running, 
 playing among the flowers, like a flower itself of life and love, 
 and calling you mother !' 
 
 "I waited for an answer. A too prolonged silence led me 
 to perceive the terrible effect of my words, though the dark- 
 ness at first concealed it. Leaning on her sofa, the Countess 
 
352 HONORINB 
 
 had not indeed fainted, but frozen under a nervous attack of 
 which the first chill, as gentle as everything that was part 
 of her, felt, as she afterwards said, like the influence of a 
 most insidious poison. I called Madame Gobain, who came 
 and led away her mistress, laid her on her bed, unlaced her, 
 undressed her, and restored her, not to life, it is true, but to 
 the consciousness of some dreadful suffering. I meanwhile 
 walked up and down the path behind the house, weeping, and 
 doubting my success. I only wished to give up this part of 
 the bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame 
 Gobain, who came down and found me with my face wet with 
 tears, hastily went up again to say to the Countess : 
 
 " 'What has happened, madame ? Monsieur Maurice is 
 crying like a child.' 
 
 "Eoused to action by the evil interpretation that might be 
 put on our mutual behavior, she summoned superhuman 
 strength to put on a wrapper and come down to me. 
 
 " 'You are not the cause of this attack,' said she. 'I am 
 subject to these spasms, a sort of cramp of the heart ' 
 
 " 'And will you not tell me of your troubles ?' said I, in a 
 voice which cannot be affected, as I wiped away my tears. 
 'Have you not just now told me that you have been a mother, 
 and have been so unhappy as to lose your child ?' 
 
 " 'Marie !' she called as she rang the bell. Gobain came 
 in. 
 
 " 'Bring lights and some tea,' said she, with the calm de- 
 cision of a Mylady clothed in the armor of pride by the dread- 
 ful English training which you know too well. 
 
 "When the housekeeper had lighted the tapers and closed 
 the shutters, the Countess showed me a mute countenance; 
 her indomitable pride and gravity, worthy of a savage, had 
 already reasserted their mastery. She said : 
 
 " 'Do you know why I like Lord Byron so much ? It is 
 because he suffered as animals do. Of what use are com- 
 plaints when they are not an elegy like Manfred's, nor bitter 
 mockery like Don Juan's, nor a reverie like Childe Harold's ? 
 Nothing shall be known of me. My heart is a poem that I 
 lay before God.' 
 
HONORINE 353 
 
 " If I chose ' said I. 
 
 "'If?' she repeated. 
 
 " 'I have no interest in anything/ I replied, 'so I cannot 
 be inquisitive; but, if I chose, I could know all your secrets 
 by to-morrow.' 
 
 "'I defy you!' she exclaimed, with ill-disguised uneasi- 
 ness. 
 
 "'Seriously?' 
 
 " 'Certainly,' said she, tossing her head. 'If such a crime 
 is possible, I ought to know it.' 
 
 " 'In the first place, madame,' I went on, pointing to her 
 hands, 'those pretty fingers, which are enough to show that 
 you are not a mere girl — were they made for toil ? Then you 
 call yourself Madame Gobain, you, who, in my presence the 
 other day on receiving a letter, said to Marie : "Here, this is 
 for you?" Marie is the real Madame Gobain; so you conceal 
 your name behind that of your housekeeper. — Fear nothing, 
 madame, from me. You have in me the most devoted friend 
 you will ever have: Friend, do you understand me? I give 
 this word its sacred and pathetic meaning, so profaned in 
 France, where we apply it to our enemies. And your friend, 
 who will defend you against everything, only wishes that you 
 should be as happy as such a woman ought to be. Who can 
 teU whether the pain I have involuntarily caused you was 
 not a voluntary act?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' replied she with threatening audacity, 'I insist on it. 
 Be curious, and tell me all that you can find out about me; 
 but,' and she held up her finger, 'you must also tell me by 
 what means you obtain your information. The preservation 
 of the small happiness I enjoy here depends on the steps you 
 take.' 
 
 'That means that you will fly- 
 
 " 'On wings !' she cried, 'to the JSTew World ' 
 
 " 'Where you will be at the mercy of the brutal passions 
 
 you will inspire,' said I, interrupting her. 'Is it not the very 
 
 essence of genius and beauty to shine, to attract men's gaze, 
 
 to excite desires and evil thoughts? Paris is a desert with 
 
 23 
 
354 HONORINE 
 
 Bedouins; Paris is the only place in the world where those 
 who must work for their livelihood can hide their life. What 
 have you to complain of? Who am I? An additional ser- 
 vant — M. Gobain, that is all. If you have to fight a duel, 
 you may need a second.' 
 
 "'Never mind; find out who I am. I have already said 
 that I insist. ISTow, I beg that you will/ she went on, with the 
 grace which you ladies have at command," said the Consul, 
 looking at the ladies. 
 
 " 'Well, then, to-morrow, at the same hour, I will tell you 
 what I may have discovered,' replied I. 'But do not there- 
 fore hate me ! Will you behave like other women ?' 
 
 " 'What do other women do ?' 
 
 " 'They lay upon us immense sacrifices, and when we have 
 made them, they reproach us for it some time later as if it 
 were an injury.' 
 
 " 'They are right if the thing required appears to be a 
 sacrifice!' replied she pointedly. 
 
 " 'Instead of sacrifices, say efforts and ' 
 
 " 'It would be an impertinence,' said she. 
 
 " 'Forgive me,' said I. 'I forget that woman and the Pope 
 are infallible.' 
 
 " 'Good heavens !' said she after a long pause, 'only two 
 words would be enough to destroy the peace so dearly bought, 
 and which I enjoy like a fraud ' 
 
 "She rose and paid no further heed to me. 
 
 " 'Where can I go?' she said. 'What is to become of me? 
 — Must I leave this quiet retreat, that I had arranged with 
 such care to end my days in ?' 
 
 " 'To end your days !' exclaimed I with visible alarm. 'Has 
 it never struck you that a time would come when you could 
 no longer work, when competition will lower the price of 
 flowers and articles of fashion ?' 
 
 " 'I have already saved a thousand crowns,' she said. 
 
 " 'Heavens ! what privations such a sum must represent !' 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " 'Leave me,' said she, 'tiU to-morrow. This evening I am 
 
HONORINE 355 
 
 not myself; I must be alone. Must I not save my strength in 
 case of disaster? For, if you should learn anything, others 
 besides you would be informed, and then — Good-night,' she 
 added shortly, dismissing me with an imperious gesture. 
 
 " 'The battle is to-morrow, then,' I replied with a smile, 
 to keep up the appearance of indifference I had given to the 
 scene. But as I went down the avenue I repeated the words : 
 
 " 'The battle is to-morrow.' 
 
 "Octave's anxiety was equal to Honorine's. The Count 
 and I remained together till two in the morning, walking to 
 and fro by the trenches of the Bastille, like two generals who, 
 on the eve of a battle, calculate all the chances, examine the 
 ground, and perceive that the victory must depend on an op- 
 portunity to be seized half-way through the fight. These 
 two divided beings would each lie awake, one in the hope, the 
 other in agonizing dread of reunion. The real dramas of life 
 are not in circumstances, but in feelings ; they are played in 
 the heart, or, if you please, in that vast realm which we ought 
 to call the Spiritual World. Octave and Honorine moved and 
 lived altogether in the world of lofty spirits. 
 
 "I was punctual. At ten next evening I was, for the 
 first time, shown into a charming bedroom furnished with 
 white and blue — ^the nest of this wounded dove. The 
 Countess looked at me, and was about to speak, but was 
 stricken dumb by my respectful demeanor. 
 
 " 'Madame la Comtesse,' said I with a grave smile. 
 
 "The poor woman, who had risen, dropped back into her 
 chair and remained there, sunk in an attitude of grief, which 
 I should have liked to see perpetuated by a great painter. 
 
 " 'You are,' I went on, 'the wife of the noblest and most 
 highly respected of men; of a man who is acknowledged to 
 be great, but who is far greater in his conduct to you than 
 he is in the eyes of the world. You and he are two lofty 
 natures. — Where do you suppose yourself to be living?' I 
 asked her. 
 
 " 'In my own house,' she replied, opening her eyes with a 
 wide stare of astonishment. 
 
356 HONORINE 
 
 " 'In Count Octave's/ I replied. 'You have been tricked. 
 M. Lenonnand, the usher of the Court, is not the real owner; 
 he is only a screen for your husband. The delightful se- 
 clusion you enjoy is the Count's work, the money you earn 
 is paid by him, and his protection extends to the most trivial 
 details of your existence. Your husband has saved you in 
 the eyes of the world; he has assigned plausible reasons for 
 your disappearance; he professes to hope that you were not 
 lost in the wreck of the Gecile, the ship in which you sailed 
 for Havana to secure the fortune to be left to you by an 
 old aunt, who might have forgotten you; you embarked, 
 escorted by two ladies of her family and an old man-servant. 
 The Count says that he has sent agents to various spots, 
 and received letters which give him great hopes. He takes 
 as many precautions to hide you from all eyes as you take 
 yourself. In short, he obeys you . . .' 
 
 " 'That is enough,' she said. 'I want to know but one thing 
 more. From whom have you obtained all these details?' 
 
 " 'Well, madame, my uncle got a place for a penniless 
 youth as secretary to the Commissary of police in this part 
 of Paris. That young man told me everything. If you 
 leave this house this evening, however stealthily, your hus- 
 band will know where you are gone, and his care will 
 follow you everywhere. — How could a woman so clever as 
 you are believe that shopkeepers buy flowers and caps as dear 
 as they sell them? Ask a thousand crowns for a bouquet, 
 and you will get it. No mother's tenderness was ever more 
 ingenious than your husband's ! I have learned from the 
 porter of this house that the Count often comes behind the 
 fence when all are asleep, to see the glimmer of your night- 
 light ! Your large cashmere shawl cost six thousand francs — 
 your old-clothes-seller brings you, as second hand, things fresh 
 from the best makers. In short, you are living here like Venus 
 in the toils of Vulcan ; but you are alone in your prison by the 
 devices of a sublime magnanimity, sublime for seven years 
 past, and at every hour.' 
 
 "The Countess was trembling as a trapped swallow trembles 
 
HONORINE 35T 
 
 while, as you hold it in your hand, it strains its neck to look 
 about it with wild eyes. She shook with a nervous spasm, 
 studying me with a defiant look. Her dry eyes glittered with 
 a light that was almost hot: still, she was a woman! The 
 moment came when her tears forced their way, and she wept — 
 not because she was touched, but because she was helpless; 
 they were tears of desperation. She had believed herself in- 
 dependent and free; marriage weighed on her as the prison 
 cell does on the captive. 
 
 " 'I wiU go !' she cried through her tears. 'He forces me 
 to it; I will go where no one certainly will come after me.' 
 
 " 'What,' I said, 'you would kill yourself ? — Madame, you 
 must have some very powerful reasons for not wishing to 
 return to Comte Octave.' 
 
 " 'Certainly I have !' 
 
 " TVell, then, tell them to me ; tell them to my uncle. In 
 us you wiU find two devoted advisers. Though in the con- 
 fessional my uncle is a priest, he never is one in a drawing- 
 room. We will hear you ; we will try to find a solution of the 
 problems you may lay before us; and if you are the dupe or 
 the victim of some misapprehension, perhaps we can clear the 
 matter up. Your soul, I believe, is pure; but if you have 
 done wrong, your fault is fully expiated. ... At any 
 rate, remember that in me you have a most sincere friend. 
 If you should wish to evade the Count's tyranny, I will find 
 you the means ; he shall never find you.' 
 
 " 'Oh ! there is always a convent !' said she. 
 
 " 'Yes. But the Count, as Minister of State, can procure 
 your rejection by every convent in the world. Even though 
 he is powerful, I will save you from him — ; but — only when 
 you have demonstrated to me that you cannot and ought not 
 to return to him. Oh! do not fear that you would escape 
 his power only to fall into mine,' I added, noticing a glance 
 of horrible suspicion, full of exaggerated dignity. 'You shall 
 have peace, solitude, and independence; in short, you shall 
 be as free and as little annoyed as if you were an ugly, cross 
 old maid. I myself would never be able to see you without 
 your consent.' 
 
358 HONOKINE 
 
 " 'And how ? By what means ?' 
 
 " 'That is my secret. I am not deceiving you, of that you 
 may be sure. Prove to me that this is the only life you can 
 lead, that it is preferable to that of the Comtesse Octave, rich, 
 admired, in one of the finest houses in Paris, beloved by her 
 husband, a happy mother . . . and I will decide in your 
 favor.' 
 
 " 'But,' said she, 'will there never be a man who under- 
 stands me ?' 
 
 " 'JSTo. And that is why I appeal to religion to decide be- 
 tween us. The Cure of the White Friars is a saint, seventy- 
 five years of age. My uncle is not a Grand Inquisitor, he is 
 Saint John; but for you he will be Fenelon — the Penelon who 
 said to the Due de Bourgogne : 'Eat a calf on a Friday by all 
 means, monseigneur. But be a Christian.' 
 
 " 'Nay, nay, monsieur, the convent is my last hope and my 
 only refuge. There is none but God who can understand me. 
 No man, not Saint Augustine himself, the tenderest of the 
 Fathers of the Church, could enter into the scruples of my 
 conscience, which are to me as the circles of Dante's hell, 
 whence there is no escape. Another than my husband, a 
 different man, however unworthy of the offering, has had all 
 my love. No, he has not had it, for he did not take it ; I gave 
 it him as a mother gives her child a wonderful toy, which 
 it breaks. For me there never could be two loves. In some 
 natures love can never be on trial ; it is, or it is not. When 
 it comes, when it rises up, it is complete. — Well, that life of 
 eighteen months was to me a life of eighteen years; I threw 
 into it all the faculties of my being, which were not im- 
 poverished by their effusiveness ; they were exhausted by that 
 delusive intimacy in which I alone was genuine. For me 
 the cup of happiness is not drained, nor empty; and nothing 
 can refill it, for it is broken. I am out of the fray ; I have no 
 weapons left. Having thus 'Utterly abandoned myself, what 
 am I ? — the leavings of a feast. I had but one name bestowed 
 on me, Honorine, as I had but one heart. My husband had 
 the young girl, a worthless lover had the woman — there is 
 
HONORINE 359 
 
 nothing left! — Then let myself be loved! that is the great 
 idea you mean to utter to me. Oh ! but I still am something, 
 and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute! Yes, by the 
 light of the conflagration I saw clearly ; and I tell you — ^well, 
 I could imagine surrendering to another man's love, but to 
 Octave's? — No, never/ 
 
 " 'Ah ! you love him,' I said. 
 
 "'I esteem him, respect him, venerate him; he never has 
 done me the smallest hurt ; he is kind, he is tender ; but I can 
 never more love him. However,' she went on, let us talk 
 no more of this. Discussion makes everything small. I 
 will express my notions on this subject in writing to you, for 
 at this moment they are suffocating me; I am feverish, my 
 feet are standing in the ashes of my Paraclete. All that I 
 see, these things which I believed I had earned by my labor, 
 now remind me of everything I wish to forget. Ah ! I must 
 fly from hence as I fled from my home.' 
 
 " 'Where will you go ?' I asked. 'Can a woman exist un- 
 protected ? At thirty, in all the glory of your beauty, rich in 
 powers of which you have no suspicion, full of tenderness to 
 be bestowed, are you prepared to live in the wilderness where 
 I could hide you ? — Be quite easy. The Count, who for nine 
 years has never allowed himself to be seen here, will never go 
 there without your permission. You have his sublime de- 
 votion of nine years as a guarantee for your tranquillity. You 
 may therefore discuss the future in perfect confidence with 
 my uncle and me. My uncle has as much influence as a 
 Minister of State. So compose yourself; do not exaggerate 
 your misfortune. A priest whose hair has grown white in the 
 exercise of his functions is not a boy ; you will be understood 
 by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly 
 fifty years now, and who weighs in his hands the ponderous 
 heart of kings and princes. If he is stern under his stole, in 
 the presence of your flowers he will be as tender as they are, 
 and as indulgent as his Divine Master.' 
 
 "I left the Countess at midnight; she was apparently calm, 
 but depressed, and had some secret purpose which no per- 
 
360 HONOBINE 
 
 spicacity could guess. I found the Count a few paces off, in 
 the Eue Saint-Maur. Drawn by an irresistible attraction, 
 he had quitted the spot on the Boulevards where we had agreed 
 to meet. 
 
 " 'What a night my poor child will go through V he ex- 
 claimed, when I had finished my account of the scene that had 
 just taken place. 'Supposing I were to go to her !' he added ; 
 'supposing she were to see me suddenly ?' 
 
 " 'At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out of 
 the window,' I replied. 'The Countess is one of those Lu- 
 cretias who could not survive any violence, even if it were done 
 by a man into whose arms she could throw herself.' 
 
 " 'You are young,' he answered ; 'you do not know that in a 
 soul tossed by such dreadful alternatives the will is like 
 waters of a lake lashed by a tempest ; the wind changes every 
 instant, and the waves are driven now to one shore, now to the 
 other. During this night the chances are quite as great that 
 on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as that she 
 would throw herself out of the window.' 
 
 " 'And you would accept the equal chances,' said I. 
 
 " 'Well, come,' said he, 'I have at home, to enable me to 
 wait till to-morrow, a dose of opium which Desplein prepared 
 for me to send me to sleep without any risk !' 
 
 "Next day at noon Gobain brought me a letter, telling me 
 that the Countess had gone to bed at six, worn out with 
 fatigue, and that, having taken a soothing draught prepared 
 by the chemist, she had now fallen asleep. 
 
 "This is her letter, of which I kept a copy — for you, made- 
 moiselle," said the Consul, addressing Camille, "know all the 
 resources of art, the tricks of style, and the efforts made in 
 their compositions by writers who do not lack skill; but you 
 will acknowledge that literature could never find such lan- 
 guage in its assumed pathos; there is nothing so terrible as 
 truth. Here is the letter written by this woman, or rather 
 by this anguish : — 
 
HONOEINE 361 
 
 " 'Monsieur Maurice, — 
 
 " 'I know all your uncle could say to me; he is not better 
 informed than my own conscience. Conscience is the in- 
 terpreter of God to man. I know that if I am not reconciled 
 to Octave, I shall be damned ; that is the sentence of religious 
 law. Civil law condemns me to obey, cost what it may. If 
 my husband does not reject me, the world will regard me as 
 pure, as virtuous, whatever I may have done. Yes, that much 
 is sublime in marriage ; society ratifies the husband's forgive- 
 ness; but it forgets that the forgiveness must be accepted. 
 Legally, religiously, and from the world's point of view I 
 ought to go back to Octave. Keeping only to the human 
 aspect of the question, is it not cruel to refuse him happiness, 
 to deprive him of childreUj to wipe his name out of the 
 Golden Book and the list of peers? My sufferings, my re- 
 pugnance, my feelings, all my egoism — for I know that I am 
 an egoist — ought to be sacrificed to the family. I shall be a 
 mother ; the caresses of my child will wipe away many tears ! 
 I shall be very happy ; I certainly shall be much looked up to. 
 I shall ride, haughty and wealthy, in a handsome carriage! 
 I shall have servants and a fine house, and be the queen of 
 as many parties as there are weeks in the year. The world 
 will receive me handsomely. I shall not have to climb up 
 again to the heaven of aristocracy, I shall never have come 
 down from it. So God, the law, society are all in accord. 
 
 ""'What are you rebelling against?" I am asked from 
 the height of heaven, from the pulpit, from the judge's bench, 
 and from the throne, whose august intervention may at need 
 be invoked by the Count. Your uncle, indeed, at need, would 
 speak to me of a certain celestial grace which will flood my 
 heart when I know the pleasure of doing my duty. 
 
 " 'God, the law, the world, and Octave all wish me to live, 
 no doubt. Well, if there is no other difficulty, my reply cuts 
 the knot : I will not live. I will become quite white and in- 
 nocent again; for I will lie in my shroud, white with the 
 blameless pallor of death. This is not in the least "mulish 
 obstinacy." That mulish obstinacy of which you jestingly 
 
362 HONOEINE 
 
 accused me is in a woman the result of confidence, of a vision 
 of the future. Though my husband, sublimely generous, may 
 forget all, I shall not forget. Does forgetfulnesa depend on 
 our will ? When a widow re-marries, love makes a girl of her; 
 she marries a man she loves. But I cannot love the Count. 
 It all lies in that, do not you see ? 
 
 " 'Every time my eyes met his I should see my sin in them, 
 even when his were full of love. The greatness of his gen- 
 erosity would be the measure of the greatness of my crime. 
 My eyes, always uneasy, would be for ever reading an in- 
 visible condemnation. My heart would be full of confused 
 and struggling memories ; marriage can never move me to the 
 cruel rapture, the mortal delirium of passion. I should kill 
 my husband by my coldness, by comparisons which he would 
 guess, though hidden in the depths of my conscience. Oh! 
 on the day when I should read a trace of involuntary, even of 
 suppressed reproach in a furrow on his brow, in a saddened 
 look, in some imperceptible gesture, nothing could hold me : I 
 should be lying with a fractured skull on the pavement, and 
 find that less hard than my husband. It might be my own 
 over-susceptibility that would lead me to this horrible but 
 welcome death; I might die the victim of an impatient mood 
 in Octave caused by some matter of business, or be deceived 
 by some unjust suspicion. Alas ! I might even mistake some 
 proof of love for a sign of contempt ! 
 
 " 'What torture on both sides ! Octave would be always 
 doubting me, I doubting him. I, quite involuxitarily, should 
 give him a rival wholly unworthy of him, a man whom I 
 despise, but with whom I have known raptures branded on 
 me with fire, which are my shame, but which I cannot forget. 
 
 " 'Have I shown you enough of my heart ? ISTo one, mon- 
 sieur, can convince me that love may be renewed, for I neither 
 can nor will accept love from any one. A young bride is like 
 a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had 
 been walked over. You, who are a florist, you know whether 
 it is ever possible to restore the broken stem, to revive the 
 faded colors, to make the sap flow again in the tender vessels 
 
HONORINB 863 
 
 of which the whole vegetative function lies in their perfect 
 rigidity. If some botanist should attempt the operation, could 
 his genius smooth out the folds of the bruised corolla? If 
 he could remake a flower, he would be God ! God alone can 
 remake me ! I am drinking the bitter cup of expiation ; but 
 as I drink it I painfully spell out this sentence : Expiation is 
 not annihilation. 
 
 " 'In my little house, alone, I eat my bread soaked in tears ; 
 but no one sees me eat nor sees me weep. If I go back to 
 Octave, I must give up my tears — they would ofEend him. Oh ! 
 monsieur, how many virtues must a woman tread under foot, 
 not to give herself, but to restore herself to a betrayed hus- 
 band? Who could count them? God alone; for He alone 
 can know and encourage the horrible refinements at which the 
 angels must turn pale. N"ay, I will go further. A woman 
 has courage in the presence of her husband if he knows noth- 
 ing; she shows a sort of fierce strength in her hypocrisy; she 
 deceives him to secure him double happiness. But common 
 knowledge is surely degrading. Supposing I could exchange 
 humiliation for ecstasy? Would not Octave at last feel that 
 my consent was sheer depravity? Marriage is based on 
 esteem, on sacrifices on both sides; but neither Octave nor I 
 could esteem each other the day after our reunion. He would 
 have disgraced me by a love like that of an old man for a 
 courtesan, and I should for ever feel the shame of being a 
 chattel instead of a lady. I should represent pleasure, and not 
 virtue, in his house. These are the bitter fruits of such a sin. 
 I have made myself a bed where I can only toss on burning 
 coals, a sleepless pillow. 
 
 " 'Here, when I suffer, I bless my sufferings ; I say to God, 
 "I thank Thee I" But in my husband's house I should be full 
 of terror, tasting joys to which I have no right. 
 
 " 'AH this, monsieur, is not argument ; it is the feeling of a 
 soul made vast and hollow by seven years of suffering. 
 Finally, must I make a horrible confession? I shall always 
 feel at my bosom the lips of a child conceived in rapture and 
 joy, and in the belief in happiness, of a child I nursed for 
 
364 HONORINE 
 
 seven months, that I shall bear in my womb all the days of 
 my life. If other children should draw their nourishment 
 from me, they would drink in tears mingling with the milk, 
 and turning it sour. I seem a light thing, you regard me as 
 a child — Ah yes ! I have a child's memory, the memory which 
 returns to us on the verge of the tomb. So, you see, there 
 is not a situation in that beautiful life to which the world 
 and my husband's love want to recall me, which is not a false 
 position, which does not cover a snare or reveal a precipice 
 down which I must fall, torn by pitiless rocks. For five years 
 now I have been wandering in the sandy desert of the future 
 without finding a place convenient to repent in, because my 
 soul is possessed by true repentance. 
 
 " 'Religion has its answers ready to all this, and I knowthem 
 by heart. This suffering, these difficulties, are my punishment, 
 she says, and God will give me strength to endure them. 
 This, monsieur, is an argument to certain pious souls gifted 
 with an energy which I have not. I have made my choice 
 between this hell, where God does not forbid my blessing 
 Him, and the hell that awaits me under Count Octave's 
 roof. 
 
 " 'One word more. If I were still a girl, with the expe- 
 rience I now have, my husband is the man I should choose ; but 
 that is the very reason of my refusal. I could not bear to blush 
 before that man. What ! I should be always on my knees, he 
 always standing upright ; and if we were to exchange positions, 
 I should scorn him ! I will not be better treated by him in 
 consequence of my sin. The angel who might venture under 
 such circumstances on certain liberties which are permissible 
 when both are equally blameless, is not on earth; he dwells 
 in heaven ! Octave is full of delicate feeling, I know ; but 
 even in his soul (which, however generous, is a man's soul 
 after all) there is no guarantee for the new life I should lead 
 with him. 
 
 " 'Come, then, and tell me where I may find the solitude, 
 the peace, the silence, so kindly to irreparable woes, which you 
 promised me.' 
 
HONORINE 365 
 
 "After making this copy of the letter to preserve it com- 
 plete, I went to the Eue Payenne. Anxiety had conquered 
 the power of opium. Octave was walking up and down his 
 garden like a madman. 
 
 " 'Answer that F said I, giving him his wife's letter. 'Try 
 to reassure the modesty of experience. It is rather more 
 difficult than conquering the modesty of ignorance, which 
 curiosity helps to betray.' 
 
 " 'She is mine !' cried the Count, whose face expressed 
 joy as he went on reading the letter. 
 
 "He signed to me with his hand to leave him to himself. 
 I understood that extreme happiness and extreme pain obey 
 the same laws; I went in to receive Madame de Courteville 
 and Amelie, who were to dine with the Count that day. How- 
 ever handsome Mademoiselle de Courteville might be, I felt, 
 on seeing her once more, that love has three aspects, and that 
 the women who can inspire us with perfect love are very rare. 
 As I involuntarily compared Amelie with Honorine, I found 
 the erring wife more attractive than the pure girl. To Ho- 
 norine's heart fidelity had not been a duty, but the inevitable ; 
 whUe Amelie would serenely pronounce the most solemn 
 promises without knowing their purport or to what they bound 
 her. The crushed, the dead woman, so to speak, the sinner 
 to be reinstated, seemed to me sublime ; she incited the special 
 generosities of a man's nature ; she demanded all the treasures 
 of the heart, all the resources of strength; she filled his life 
 and gave the zest of a conflict to happiness ; whereas Amelie, 
 chaste and confiding, would settle down into the sphere of 
 peaceful motherhood, where the commonplace must be its 
 poetry, and where my mind would find no struggle and no 
 victory. 
 
 "Of the plains of Champagne and the snowy, storm-beaten 
 but sublime Alps, what young man would choose the chalky, 
 monotonous level? No; such comparisons are fatal and 
 wrong on the threshold of the Mairie. Alas ! only the ex- 
 perience of life can teach us that marriage excludes passion, 
 that a family cannot have its foundation on the tempests of 
 
366 HONOEINE 
 
 love. After having dreamed of impossible love, virith its in- 
 finite caprices, after having tasted the tormenting delights of 
 the ideal, I saw before me modest reality. Pity me, for what 
 could be expected ! At five-and-twenty I did not trust myself ; 
 but I took a manful resolution. 
 
 "I went back to the Count to announce the arrival of his 
 relations, and I saw him grown young again in the reflected 
 light of hope. 
 
 " 'What ails you, Maurice ?' said he, struck by my changed 
 expression. 
 
 " 'Monsieur le Comte- 
 
 ■ 'No longer Octave ? You, to whom I shall owe my life, 
 my happiness " 
 
 " 'My dear Octave, if you should succeed in bringing the 
 Countess back to her duty, I have studied her well' — (he 
 looked at me as Othello must have looked at lago when lago 
 first contrived to insinuate a suspicion into the Moor's mind) 
 — 'she must never see me again; she must never know that 
 Maurice was your secretary. Never mention my name to her, 
 or all will be undone. . . . You have got me an appoint- 
 ment as Maitre des Eequetes — well, get me instead some 
 diplomatic post abroad, a consulship, and do not think of my 
 marrying Amelie. — Oh ! do not be uneasy,' I added, seeing him 
 draw himself up, 'I will play my part to the end.' 
 
 " 'Poor boy !' said he, taking my hand, which he pressed, 
 while he kept back the tears that were starting to his eyes. 
 
 " 'You gave me gloves,' I said, laughing, 'but I have not 
 put them on; that is all.' 
 
 "We then agreed as to what I was to do that evening at 
 Honorine's house, whither I presently returned. It was now 
 August ; the day had been hot and stormy, but the storm hung 
 overhead, the sky was like copper; the scent of the flowers 
 was heavy, I felt as if I were in an oven, and caught my- 
 self wishing that the Countess might have set out for the 
 Indies ; but she was sitting on a wooden bench shaped like a 
 sofa, under an arbor, in a loose dress of white muslin fastened 
 with blue bows, her hair unadorned in waving bands over her 
 
HONORINB 367 
 
 cheeks, her feet on a small -wooden stool, and showing a little 
 way beyond her skirt. She did not rise ; she showed me with 
 her hand to the seat by her side, saying : 
 
 " 'N"ow, is not life at a deadlock for me ?' 
 
 " 'Life as you have made it,' I replied. 'But not the life 
 I propose to make for you ; for, if you choose, you may be very 
 happy. . . .' 
 
 " 'How ?' said she ; her whole person was a question. 
 
 " 'Your letter is in the Count's hands.' 
 
 "Honorine started like a frightened doe, sprang to a few paces 
 off, walked down the garden, turned about, remained standing 
 for some minutes, and finally went in to sit alone in the draw- 
 ing-room, where I joined her, after giving her time to get ac- 
 customed to the pain of this poniard thrust. 
 
 " 'You — a friend ? Say rather a traitor ! A spy, perhaps, 
 sent by my husband.' 
 
 "Instinct in women is as strong as the perspicacity of great 
 men. 
 
 " 'You wanted an answer to your letter, did not you ? And 
 there was but one man in the world who could write it. You 
 must read the reply, my dear Countess; and if after reading 
 it you still find that your life is a deadlock, the spy will prove 
 himself a friend; I will place you in a convent whence the 
 Count's power cannot drag you. But, before going there, let 
 us consider the other side of the question. There is a law, 
 alike divine and human, which even hatred affects to obey, 
 and which commands us not to condemn the accused without 
 hearing his defence. Till now you have passed condemnation, 
 as children do, with your ears stopped. The devotion of seven 
 years has its claims. So you must read the answer your hus- 
 band will send you. I have forwarded to him, through my 
 uncle, a copy of your letter, and my uncle asked him what his 
 reply would be if his wife wrote him a letter in such terms. 
 Thus you are not compromised. He will himself bring the 
 Count's answer. In the presence of that saintly man, and in 
 mine, out of respect for your own dignity, you must read it, 
 or you will be no better than a wilful, passionate child. You 
 
368 HONORINB 
 
 must make this sacrifice to the world, to the law, and to 
 God.' 
 
 "As she saw in this concession no attack on her womanly 
 resolve, she consented. All the labor of four or five months 
 had been building up to this moment. But do not the Pyra- 
 mids end in a point on which a bird may perch ? The Count 
 had set all his hopes on this supreme instant, and he had 
 reached it. 
 
 "In all my life I remember nothing more formidable than 
 my uncle's entrance into that little Pompadour drawing- 
 room, at ten that evening. The fine head, vdth its silver hair 
 thrown into relief by the entirely black dress, and the divinely 
 calm face, had a magical effect on the Comtesse Honorine; 
 she had the feeling of cool balm on her wounds, and beamed 
 in the reflection of that virtue which gave light without know- 
 ing it. 
 
 " 'Monsieur the Cure of the White Friars,' said old Gobain. 
 
 " ''Are you come, uncle, with a message of happiness and 
 peace ?' said I. 
 
 " 'Happiness and peace are always to be found in obedience 
 to the precepts of the Church,' replied my uncle, and -he 
 handed the Countess the following letter: — 
 
 " 'Mt dear Honorine, — 
 
 " 'If you had but done me the favor of trusting me, if you 
 had read the letter I wrote to you five years since, you would 
 have spared yourself five years of useless labor, and of priva- 
 tions which have grieved me deeply. In it I proposed an 
 arrangement of which the stipulations will relieve all your 
 fears, and make our domestic life possible. I have much to 
 reproach myself with, and in seven years of sorrow I have 
 discovered all my errors. I misunderstood marriage. I 
 failed to scent danger when it threatened you. An angel 
 was in the house. The Lord bid me guard it well ! The Lord 
 has punished me for my audacious confidence. 
 
 " 'You cannot give yourself a single lash without striking 
 me. Have mercy on me, my dear Honorine. I so fully appre- 
 
HONORINE 369 
 
 ciated your susceptibilities that I would not bring you back 
 to the old house in the Eue Payenne, where I can live without 
 you, but which I could not bear to see again with you. I am 
 decorating, with great pleasure, another house, in the Faubourg 
 Saint-Honore, to which, in hope, I conduct not a wife whom I 
 owe to her ignorance of life, and secured to me by law, but a 
 sister who will allow me to press on her brow such a kiss 
 as a father gives the daughter he blesses every day. 
 
 " 'Will you bereave me of the right I have conquered from 
 your despair — that of watching more closely over your needs, 
 your pleasures, your life even ? Women have one heart always 
 on their side, always abounding in excuses — their mother's; 
 you never knew any mother but my mother, who would have 
 brought you back to me. But how is it that you never guessed 
 that I had for you the heart of a mother, both of my mother 
 and of your own? Yes, dear, my affection is neither mean 
 nor grasping ; it is one of those which will never let any annoy- 
 ance last long enough to pucker the brow of the child it wor- 
 ships. What can you think of the companion of your child- 
 hood, Honorine, if you believe him capable of accepting kisses 
 given in trembling, of living between delight and anxiety ? Do 
 not fear that you will be exposed to the laments of a suppliant 
 passion ; I would not want you back until I felt certain of my 
 own strength to leave you in perfect freedom. 
 
 " 'Your solitary pride has exaggerated the difficulties. You 
 may, if you will, look on at the life of a brother, or of a father, 
 without either suffering or joy; but you will find neither 
 mockery nor indifference, nor have any doubt as to his inten- 
 tions. The warmth of the atmosphere in which you live will 
 be always equable and genial, without tempests, without a pos- 
 sible squall. If, later, when you feel secure that you are as 
 much at home as in your own little house, you desire to try 
 some other elements of happiness, pleasures, or amusements, 
 you can expand their circle at your will. The tenderness of a 
 mother knows neither contempt nor pity. What is it ? Love 
 without desire. Well, in me admiration shall hide every sen- 
 timent in which you might see an offence. 
 24 
 
370 HONOKINE 
 
 "'Thus, living side by side, we may both be magnani- 
 mous. In you the kindness of a sister, the affectionate thought- 
 fulness of a friend, will satisfy the ambition of him who 
 wishes to be your life's companion; and you may measure his 
 tenderness by the care he will take to conceal it. ISTeither you 
 nor I will be jealous of the past, for we may each acknowledge 
 that the other has sense enough to look only straight for- 
 ward. 
 
 " 'Thus you will be at home in your new house exactly as 
 you are in the Eue Saint-Maur; unapproachable, alone, oc- 
 cupied as you please, living by your own law; but having in 
 addition the legitimate protection, of which you are now 
 exacting the most chivalrous labors of love, with the considera- 
 tion which lends so much lustre to a woman, and the fortune 
 which will allow of your doing many good works. Honorine, 
 when you long for an unnecessary absolution, you have only 
 to ask for it; it will not be forced upon you by the Church or 
 by the Law; it will wait on your pride, on your own impul- 
 sion. My wife might indeed have to fear all the things you 
 dread; but not my friend and sister, towards whom I am 
 bound to show every form and refinement of politeness. To 
 see you happy is enough happiness for me; I have proved this 
 for these seven years past. The guarantee for this, Honorine, 
 is to be seen in all the flowers made by you, carefully pre- 
 served, and watered by my tears. Like the quipos, the tally 
 cords of the Peruvians, they are the record of our sorrows. 
 
 " 'If this secret compact does not suit you, my child, I have 
 begged the saintly man who takes charge of this letter not 
 to say a word in my behalf. I will not owe your return to 
 the terrors threatened by the Church, nor to the bidding of 
 the Law. I will not accept the simple and quiet happiness 
 that I ask from any one but yourself. If you persist in con- 
 demning me to the lonely life, bereft even of a fraternal 
 smile, which I have led for nine years, if you remain in your 
 solitude and show no sign, my will yields to yours. Under- 
 stand me perfectly : you shall be no more troubled than you 
 have been until this day. I vrill get rid of the crazy fellow 
 
HONORINB 871 
 
 who has meddled in your concerns, and has perhaps caused 
 you some annoyance . . .' 
 
 " 'Monsieur/ said Honorine, folding up the letter, which 
 she placed in her bosom, and looking at my uncle, 'thank you 
 very much. I will avail myself of Monsieur le Comte's per- 
 mission to remain here ' 
 
 " 'Ah !' I exclaimed. 
 
 "This exclamation made my uncle look at me uneasily, and 
 won from the Countess a mischievous glance, which en- 
 lightened me as to her motives. 
 
 "Honorine had wanted to ascertain whether I were an actor, 
 a bird snarer; and I had the melancholy satisfaction of de- 
 ceiving her by my exclamation, which was one of those cries 
 from the heart which women understand so well. 
 
 " 'Ah, Maurice,' said she, 'you know how to love.' 
 
 "The light that flashed in my eyes was another reply which 
 would have dissipated the Countess' uneasiness if she still 
 had any. Thus the Count found me useful to the very last. 
 
 "Honorine then took out the Count's letter again to finish 
 reading it. My uncle signed to me, and I rose. 
 
 " 'Let us leave the Countess,' said he. 
 
 " 'You are going already, Maurice ?' she said, without look- 
 ing at me. 
 
 "She rose, and still reading, followed us to the door. On 
 the threshold she took my hand, pressed it very affectionately, 
 and said, 'We shall meet again . . .' 
 
 " 'No,' I replied, wringing her hand, so that she cried 
 out. 'You love your husband. I leave to-morrow.' 
 
 "And I rushed away, leaving my uncle, to whom she said : 
 
 " 'Why, what is the matter with your nephew ?' 
 
 "The good Abbe completed my work by pointing to his 
 head and heart, as much as to say, 'He is mad, madame ; you 
 must forgive him !' and with all the more truth, because he 
 really thought it. 
 
 "Six days after, I set out with an appointment as vice-consul 
 in Spain, in a large commercial town, where I could quickly 
 
372 HONORINE 
 
 qualify to rise in the career of a consul, to which I now re- 
 stricted my ambition. After I had established myself there, 
 I received this letter from the Count : — 
 
 " 'My dear Madeiob, — 
 
 " 'If I were happy, I should not write to you, but I have 
 entered on a new life of suffering. I have grown young 
 again in my desires, with all the impatience of a man of forty, 
 and the prudence of a diplomatist, who has learned to moder- 
 ate his passion. When you left I had not yet been admitted 
 to the pavilion in the Eue Saint-Maur, but a letter had prom- 
 ised me that I should have permission — ^the mild and melan- 
 choly letter of a woman who dreaded the agitations of a meet- 
 ing. After waiting for more than a month, I made bold 
 to call, and desired Gobain to inquire whether I could be 
 received. I sat down in a cha^r in the avenue near the lodge, 
 my head buried in my hands, and there I remained for almost 
 an hour. 
 
 " ' "Madame had to dress," said Gobain, to hide Honorine's 
 hesitancy under a pride of appearance which was flattering 
 to me. 
 
 " 'During a long quarter of an hour we both of us were 
 possessed by an involuntary nervous trembling as great as that 
 which seizes a speaker on the platform, and we spoke to each 
 other sacred phrases, like those of persons taken by surprise 
 who "make believe" a conversation. 
 
 " ' "You see, Honorine," said I, my eyes full of tears, "the 
 ice is broken, and I am so tremulous with happiness that you 
 must forgive the incoherency of my language. It will be 
 so for a long time yet." 
 
 " ' "There is no crime in being in love with your wife," said 
 she with a forced smile. 
 
 " ' "Do me the favor," said I, "no longer to work as you 
 do. I have heard from Madame Gobain that for three weeks 
 you have been living on your savings; you have sixty thou- 
 sand francs a year of your own, and if you cannot give me 
 back your heart, at least do not abandon your fortune to me." 
 ■'I have long known your kindness," said she. 
 
 (( e ii^ 
 
HONOKINE 373 
 
 " ' "Though you should prefer to remain here," said I, "and 
 to preserve your independence ; though the most ardent love 
 should find no favor in your eyes, still, do not toil." 
 
 " 'I gave her three certificates for twelve thousand francs 
 a year each ; she took them, opened them languidly, and after 
 reading them through she gave me only a look as my reward. 
 She fully understood that I was not offering her money, but 
 freedom. 
 
 " ' "I am conquered," said she, holding out her hand, which 
 I kissed. "Come and see me as often as you like." 
 
 " 'So she had done herself a violence in receiving me. Next 
 day I found her armed with affected high spirits, and it took 
 two months of habit before I saw her in her true character. 
 But then it was like a delicious May, a springtime of love that 
 gave me ineffable bliss; she was no longer afraid; she was 
 studying me. Alas ! when I proposed that she should go to 
 England to return ostensibly to me, to our home, that she 
 should resume her rank and live in our new residence, she 
 was seized with alarm. 
 
 " ' "Why not live always as we are ?" she said. 
 
 " 'I submitted without saying a word. 
 
 " ' "Is she making an experiment ?" I asked myself as I 
 left her. On my way from my own house to the Eue Saint- 
 Maur thoughts of love had swelled in my heart, and I had 
 said to myself, like a young man, "This evening she will 
 yield." 
 
 " 'AH my real or affected force was blown to the winds by 
 a smile, by a command from those proud, calm eyes, un- 
 touched by passion. I remembered the terrible words you once 
 quoted to me, "Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the 
 watchword of woman's charter — Liberty !" and they froze me. 
 I felt imperatively how necessary to me was Honorine's con- 
 sent, and how impossible it was to wring it from her. Could 
 she guess the storms that distracted me when I left as when 
 I came ? 
 
 " 'At last I painted my situation in a letter to her, giving 
 up the attempt to speak of it. Honorine made no answer, 
 
374 HONOEINE 
 
 and she was so sad that I made as though I had not written. 
 I was deeply grieved by the idea that I could have distressed 
 her; she read my heart and forgave me. And this was how. 
 Three days ago she received me, for the first time, in her own 
 blue-and-white room. It was bright with flowers, dressed, 
 and lighted up. Honorine was in a dress that made her be- 
 witching. Her hair framed that face that you know in its 
 light curls; and in it were some sprays of Cape heath; she 
 wore a white muslin gown, a white sash with long floating 
 ends. You know what she is in such simplicity, but that day 
 she was a bride, the Honorine of long past days. My joy 
 was chilled at once, for her face was terribly grave ; there were 
 fires beneath the ice. 
 
 " ' "Octave," she said, "I will return as your wife when 
 you will. But understand clearly that this submission has its 
 dangers. I can be resigned " 
 
 " 'I made a movement. 
 
 " ' "Yes," she went on, "I understand : resignation offends 
 you, and you want what I cannot give — Love. Eeligion and 
 pity led me to renounce my vow of solitude ; you are here !" 
 She paused. 
 
 " ' "At first," she went on, "you asked no more. Now you 
 demand your wife. Well, here I give you Honorine, such as 
 she is, without deceiving you as to what she will be. — ^What 
 shall I be? A mother? I hope it. Believe me, I hope it 
 eagerly. Try to change me; you have my consent; but if I 
 should die, my dear, do not curse my memory, and do not set 
 down to obstinacy what I should call the worship of the Ideal, 
 if it were not more natural to call the indefinable feeling which 
 must kill me the worship of the Divine! The future will 
 be nothing to me; it will be your concern; consult your own 
 mind." 
 
 " 'And she sat down in the calm attitude you used to ad- 
 mire, and watched me turning pale with the pain she had 
 infiicted. My blood ran cold. On seeing the effect of her 
 words she took both my hands, and, holding them in her own, 
 she said : 
 
HONORINK S76 
 
 " * "Octave, I do love you, but not in the way you wish to be 
 loved. I love your soul. . . . Still, understand that I 
 love you enough to die in your service like an Eastern slave, 
 and without a regret. It will be my expiation." 
 
 " 'She did more ; she knelt before me on a cushion, and in 
 a spirit of sublime charity she said: 
 
 " ' "And perhaps I shall not die !" 
 
 " Tor two months now I have been struggling with myself. 
 What shall I do? My heart is too full; I therefore seek a 
 friend, and send out this cry, "What shall I do ?" ' 
 
 "I did not answer this letter. Two months later the news- 
 papers announced the return on board an English vessel of 
 the Comtesse Octave, restored to her family after adventures 
 by land and sea, invented with sufficient probability to arouse 
 no contradiction. 
 
 "When I moved to Genoa I received a formal announce- 
 ment of the happy event of the birth of a son to the Count 
 and Countess. I held that letter in my hand for two hours, 
 sitting on this terrace — on this bench. Two month after, 
 urged by Octave, by M. de Grandville, and Monsieur de 
 Serizy, my kind friends, and broken by the death of my 
 uncle, I agreed to take a wife. 
 
 "Six months after the revolution of July I received this 
 letter, which concludes the story of this couple : — 
 
 " 'Monsieur Maurice, — ^I am dying though I am a mother 
 — perhaps because I am a mother. I have played my part 
 as a wife well ; I have deceived my husband. I have had hap- 
 piness not less genuine than the tears shed by actresses on the 
 stage. I am dying for society, for the family, for mar- 
 riage, as the early Christians died for God ! I know not of 
 what I am dying, and I am honestly trying to find out, for 
 I am not perverse ; but I am bent on explaining my malady to 
 you — ^you who brought that heavenly physician your uncle, 
 at whose word I surrendered. He was my director; I nursed 
 
376 HONORINE 
 
 him in his last illness, and he showed me the way to heaven, 
 bidding me persevere in my duty. 
 
 " 'And I have done my duty. 
 
 " 'I do not blame those who forget. I admire them as 
 strong and necessary natures ; but I have the malady of mem- 
 ory ! I have not been able twice to feel that love of the heart 
 which identifies a woman with the man she loves. To the last 
 moment, as you know, I cried to your heart, in the confes- 
 sional, and to my husband, "Have mercy !" But there was no 
 mercy. Well, and I am dying, dying with stupendous courage. 
 No courtesan was ever more gay than I. My poor Octave is 
 happy; I let his love feed on the illusions of my heart. I 
 throw all my powers into this terrible masquerade ; the actress 
 is applauded, feasted, smothered in flowers ; but the invisible 
 rival comes every day to seek its prey — a fragment of my life. 
 I am rent and I smile. I smile on two children, but it is the 
 elder, the dead one, that will triumph ! I told you so before. 
 The dead child calls me, and I am going to him. 
 
 " 'The intimacy of marriage without love is a position in 
 which my soul feels degraded every hour. I can never weep 
 or give myself up to dreams but when I am alone. The 
 exigencies of society, the care of my child, and that of Octave's 
 happiness never leave me a moment to refresh myself, to renew 
 my strength, as I could in my solitude. The incessant need 
 for watchfulness startles my heart with constant alarms. I 
 have not succeeded in implanting in my soul the sharp-eared 
 vigilance that lies with facility, aaid has the eyes of a lynx. 
 It is not the lip of one I love that drinks my tears and kisses 
 my eyelids ; it is a handkerchief that dries them ; my burn- 
 ing eyes are cooled with water, and not with tender lips. It 
 is my soul that acts a part, and that perhaps is why I am 
 dying ! I lock up my griefs with so much care that nothing 
 is to be seen of it; it must eat into something, and it has 
 attacked my life. 
 
 " 'I said to the doctors, who discovered my secret, "Make 
 me die of some plausible complaint, or I shall drag my hus- 
 band with me." 
 
HONOEINE 377 
 
 " 'So it is quite understood by M. Desplein, Bianchon, and 
 myself that I am dying of the softening of some bone which 
 science has fully described. Octave believes that I adore him, 
 do you understand? So I am afraid lest he should follow 
 me. I now write to beg you in that case to be the little 
 Count's guardian. You will find with this a codicil in which 
 I have expressed my wish ; but do not produce it excepting in 
 case of need, for perhaps I am fatuously vain. My devotion 
 may perhaps leave Octave inconsolable but willing to live. 
 — Poor Octave ! I wish him a better wife than I am, for he 
 deserves to be well loved. 
 
 " 'Since my spiritual spy is married, I bid him remember 
 what the florist of the Eue Saint-Maur hereby bequeaths to 
 him as a lesson : May your wife soon be a mother ! Fling her 
 into the vulgarest materialism of household life; hinder her 
 from cherishing in her heart the mysterious flower of the 
 Ideal — of that heavenly perfection in which I believed, that 
 enchanted blossom with glorious colors, and whose perfume 
 disgusts us with reality. I am a Saint-Theresa who has not 
 been suffered to live on ecstasy in the depths of a convent, with 
 the Holy Infant, and a spotless winged angel to come and go 
 as she wished. 
 
 " Tou saw me happy among my beloved flowers. I did- 
 not tell you all : I saw love budding under your affected mad- 
 ness, and I concealed from you my thoughts, my poetry ; I did 
 not admit you to my kingdom of beauty. Well, well ; you will 
 love my child for love of me if he should one day lose his 
 poor father. Keep my secrets as the grave will keep them. 
 Do not mourn for me ; I have been dead this many a day, if 
 Saint Bernard was right in saying that where there is no more 
 love there is no more life.' " 
 
 "And the Countess died," said the Consul, putting away 
 the letters and locking the pocket-book. 
 
 "Is the Count still living?" asked the Ambassador, "for 
 since the revolution of July he has disappeared from the 
 political stage." 
 
378 HONORINE 
 
 "Do you remember, Monsieur de Lora," said the Consul- 
 General, "having seen me going to the steamboat with " 
 
 "A white-haired man ! an old man ?" said the painter. 
 
 "An old man of forty-five, going in search of health and 
 amusement in Southern Italy. That old man was my poor 
 friend, my patron, passing through Genoa to take leave of me 
 and place his will in my hands. He appoints me his son's 
 guardian. I had no occasion to tell him of Honorine's 
 wishes." 
 
 "Does he suspect himself of murder?" said Mademoiselle 
 des Touches to the Baron de I'Hostal. 
 
 "He suspects the truth," replied the Consul, "and that is 
 what is killing him. I remained on board the steam packet 
 that was to take him to Ifaples till it was out of the roadstead; 
 a small boat brought me back. We sat for some little time 
 taking leave of each other — for ever, I fear. God only knows 
 how much we love the confidant of our love when she who 
 inspired it is no more. 
 
 " 'That man,' said Octave, 'holds a charm and wears an 
 aureole.' The Count went to the prow and looked down on 
 the Mediterranean. It happened to be fine, and, moved no 
 doubt by the spectacle, he spoke these last words : 'Ought 
 we not, in the interests of human nature, to inquire what is the 
 irresistible power which leads us to sacrifice an exquisite 
 creature to the most fugitive of all pleasures, and in spite of 
 our reason ? In my conscience I heard cries. Honorine was 
 not alone in her anguish. And yet I would have it ! ... I 
 am consumed by remorse. In the Eue Payenne I was dying 
 of the joys I had not; now I shall die in Italy of the joys I 
 have had. . . . Wherein lay the discord between two 
 natures, equally noble, I dare assert ?' " 
 
 For some minutes profound silence reigned on the terrace. 
 
 Then the Consul, turning to the two women, asked, "Was 
 she virtuous ?" 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches rose, took the Consul's arm, went 
 a few steps away, and said to him : 
 
 "Are not men wrong too when they come to us and make 
 
HONORINE 379 
 
 a young girl a wife while cherisMng at the bottom of their 
 heart some angelic image, and comparing ns to those un- 
 known rivals, to perfections often borrowed from a remem- 
 brance, and always finding us wanting ?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle, you would be right if marriage were based 
 on passion; and that was the mistake of those two, who will 
 soon be no more. Marriage with heart-deep love on both 
 sides would be Paradise." 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches turned from the Consul, and 
 was immediately joined by Claude Vignon, who said in her 
 ear: 
 
 "A bit of a coxcomb is M. de I'Hostal." 
 
 "No," replied she, whispering to Claude these words : "for 
 he has not yet guessed that Honorine would have loved him. 
 — Oh !" she exclaimed, seeing the Consul's wife approaching, 
 "his wife was listening ! Unhappy man !" 
 
 Eleven was striking by all the clocks, and the guests went 
 home on foot along the seashore. 
 
 "Still, that is not life," said Mademoiselle des Touches. 
 "That woman was one of the rarest, and perhaps the most 
 extraordinary exceptions in intellect — a pearl ! Life is made 
 up of various incidents, of pain and pleasure alternately. The 
 Paradise of Dante, that sublime expression of the ideal, that 
 perpetual blue, is to be found only in the soul ; to ask it of the 
 facts of life is a luxury against which nature protests every 
 hour. To such souls as those the six feet of a cell, and the 
 kneeling chair are all they need." 
 
 "You are right," said Leon de Lora; 'T)ut good-for-nothing 
 as I may be, I cannot help admiring a woman who is capable, 
 as that one was, of living by the side of a studio, under a 
 painter's roof, and never coming down, nor seeing the world, 
 nor dipping her feet in the street mud." 
 
 "Such a thing has been known — for a few months," said 
 Claude Vignon, with deep irony. 
 
 "Comtesse Honorine is not unique of her kind," replied 
 the Ambassador to Mademoiselle des Touches. "A man, nay, 
 and a politician, a bitter writer, was the object of such a 
 
380 HONORINB 
 
 passion; and the pistol shot which killed him hit not him 
 alone ; the woman who loved lived like a nun ever after." 
 
 "Then there are yet some great souls in this age!" said 
 Camille Maupin, and she stood for some minutes pensively 
 leaning on the balustrade of the quay. 
 
 Pabis, January 1843.