UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 BROWSING ROOM
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Demote toe
 
 J^onort be Balzac 
 
 MILITARY AND POLITICAL LIFE 
 
 VOLUME III
 
 LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 
 
 7 1 8
 
 IN CHESNAY WOOD 
 
 "The brigands, remaining masters of tJic field, 
 tlianks to their number, searched the wagon, which 
 was driven into a ravine for that purpose. They 
 covered the driver's head as a blind. They broke 
 open the chests, the ground was strewn with bags of 
 money"
 
 THE NOVELS 
 
 OF 
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC 
 
 NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 Z. MARCAS 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE OF CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY 
 
 fIRST EPISODE MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 
 
 SECOND EPISODE THE NOVICE 
 
 BY G. BURNHAM IVES 
 
 WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY XAVIER LE SUEUR, ALFRED 
 
 BOILOT AND CHARLES-THEODORE DEBLOIS, AFTER 
 
 PAINTINGS BY ADRIEN MOREAU 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME 
 
 PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY 
 
 GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY GEORGE BARRIE * SON 
 

 
 Z%E 
 
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 (3 
 O 
 
 01 
 
 1 
 
 
 Z. MARCAS 
 
 189933
 
 TO MONSEIGNEUR LE COMTE GUILLAUME DE 
 WURTEMBERG 
 
 As a token of the author's respectful gratitude. 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
 (3)
 
 Z. MARCAS 
 
 "I have never seen anyone, even among the 
 remarkable men of the age, whose appearance was 
 more striking than that man's; a study of his 
 features aroused at first a feeling of melancholy, 
 and eventually caused an almost painful sensation. 
 There was a certain harmony between the person 
 and the name. The Z. that preceded the Marcas, 
 that appeared in the superscription of his letters and 
 was never forgotten in his signature, that final letter 
 of the alphabet conveyed to the mind an indefinable 
 suggestion of fatality. 
 
 "MARCAS ! Repeat to yourself that name of two 
 syllables: do you not detect a sinister meaning in it? 
 Does it not seem to you that the man who bears it 
 is destined to be martyrized? Although a strange 
 and barbarous name, it is entitled none the less to 
 be handed down to posterity; it is well put together, 
 it is readily pronounced, it has the brevity desirable 
 in illustrious names. Is it not as soft as it is strange? 
 but has it not an unfinished sound to your ear? I 
 would not like to take it upon myself to assert 
 that names exercise no influence over destinies. 
 Between the incidents of life and the names of men, 
 
 (5)
 
 6 Z. MARCAS 
 
 there are secret and inexplicable accords or visible 
 differences that surprise one; it often happens that 
 distant but potent correlations are disclosed. Our 
 globe is full, everything clings to its place. Perhaps 
 we shall go back some day to the occult sciences. 
 
 "Do you not see a disappointed twist in the 
 formation of the Z? Does it not pursue the fortui- 
 tous and capricious zigzag course of a disturbed life? 
 What wind has blown upon that letter, which begins 
 hardly fifty words in any language in which it is 
 used? Marcas's name was Zephirin. Saint-Zephirin 
 is deeply venerated in Bretagne. Marcas was a 
 Breton. 
 
 "Scrutinize that name once more: Z. Marcas! 
 The man's whole life is comprised in that capricious 
 union of the seven letters. Seven! the most sig- 
 nificant of cabalistic numbers. The man died at 
 thirty-five, so that his life was composed of seven 
 lusters. Marcas! Do you not get the idea of some 
 precious object broken by a fall, with or without a 
 crash? 
 
 "I was finishing my legal studies in Paris, in 1836. 
 I lived at that time on Rue Corneille, in a house 
 entirely devoted to students' lodgings, one of the 
 houses with a winding staircase at the rear, lighted 
 at the bottom from the street, then by inner windows 
 and at the top by a round window. There were 
 forty rooms, furnished as rooms intended for students 
 usually are. What more does youth need than was 
 provided in those rooms? a bed, a few chairs, a 
 commode, a mirror and a table. As soon as the
 
 Z. MARCAS 7 
 
 skies are clear, the student opens his window. But 
 in that street there are no pretty neighbors to ogle. 
 Across the street, the Odeon, long since closed, 
 presents to the eye its already blackening walls, the 
 tiny windows of its boxes, and its vast slated roof. 
 I was not rich enough to have a good room, I was 
 not able even to have a room to myself. Juste 
 and I shared a room with two beds, on the fifth floor. 
 
 "On that side of the stairway there were no 
 rooms but our own and another smaller one, occupied 
 by our neighbor, Z. Marcas. Juste and I were for 
 six months entirely unaware that we had such a 
 neighbor. An old woman who managed the house 
 had told us, to be sure, that the little room was 
 occupied, but she had added that we should not be 
 annoyed, as the occupant was an exceedingly quiet 
 person. In fact, we did not meet our neighbor once 
 during the first six months, and we heard no sound 
 in his room, notwithstanding the thinness of the 
 partition between us, which was one of the lath and 
 plaster partitions so common in Paris houses. 
 
 "Our chamber, which was seven feet high, was 
 hung with a wretched little blue flowered paper. 
 The painted floor knew nothing of the polish that 
 scrubbing imparts. We had a shabby list mat 
 beside our beds. The fireplace flue entered the 
 chimney too near the roof, and smoked so that we 
 were compelled to put in a chimney-pot at our own 
 expense. Our beds were painted wooden cots, 
 like those used at boarding-schools. There was 
 never anything on the mantel-shelf except two
 
 8 Z. MARCAS 
 
 copper candlesticks, sometimes with and sometimes 
 without candles, our two pipes and some tobacco, 
 loose or in a bag; then there were the little piles of 
 ashes that our visitors deposited there or that we 
 collected ourselves when smoking cigars. Two 
 calico curtains slid upon rods at the window, on 
 each side of which were two little cherry-wood 
 bookcases, of a pattern familiar to all those who 
 frequent the Latin quarter, in which we kept the 
 few books essential for our studies. The ink in the 
 inkstand was always like the thick lava in the 
 crater of a volcano. May not any inkstand to-day 
 become a Vesuvius? The quills, when twisted, 
 served to clean out the stems of our pipes. In 
 opposition to the general rule in banking, paper was 
 even scarcer with us than coin. 
 
 "How can people expect to induce young men to 
 remain in such furnished apartments? So the 
 students do their studying in cafes, at the theatre, 
 in the paths of the Luxembourg, in grisettes' rooms, 
 anywhere, even at the School of Law, except in 
 their horrible rooms horrible when it is a question 
 of studying there, but delightful when they meet 
 there to prattle and smoke. Place a cloth on yonder 
 table, imagine thereon the hastily ordered dinner 
 from the best restaurant in the quarter, with covers 
 laid for four, and two girls, have that domestic 
 scene lithographed and a saint cannot refrain from 
 smiling at it. 
 
 "We thought of nothing but our own entertain- 
 ment. Our reason for leading such a disorderly life
 
 Z. MARCAS 9 
 
 was founded upon most serious consideration of 
 what policy counsels at the present time. Juste and 
 myself could see no place for ourselves in the two 
 professions which our parents compelled us to em- 
 brace. There are a hundred lawyers, a hundred 
 doctors for every vacancy. The crowd blocks those 
 two roads, which seem to lead to fortune and which 
 are really two arenas: they fight and kill each other 
 there, not with side arms or with firearms, but by 
 intrigue and slander, by terrible labor, by campaigns 
 in the domain of intelligence, as deadly as the 
 Italian campaigns were to the republican troops. 
 To-day, when everything is resolved into a contest 
 of intellects, one must be able to remain in one's 
 chair in front of a table for forty -eight hours in suc- 
 cession, as a general sometimes remains two whole 
 days in the saddle. The great throng of aspirants 
 has compelled the medical profession to divide itself 
 into categories: there is the physician who writes, 
 the physician who teaches, the political physician 
 and the practising physician four different ways 
 of being a physician, four sections already full. As 
 for the fifth division doctors who sell remedies, 
 there is considerable rivalry there, and they fight 
 with disgusting placards posted on the blank walls 
 of Paris. In all the courts there are as many 
 lawyers as causes. The lawyer is thrown back upon 
 journalism, politics, literature. Even the State, 
 besieged by applications for the smallest places in the 
 magistracy, has ended by requiring the petitioners 
 to possess a considerable fortune. The pear-shaped
 
 10 Z. MARCAS 
 
 head of the son of a wealthy grocer will be given 
 the preference over the square head of a man of 
 talent without a sou. By straining every nerve, by 
 putting forth all his energy, a young man who 
 starts from zero may find himself, at the end of ten 
 years, below his starting point. To-day talent 
 must have the good luck that brings success to 
 incapacity; nay, more, if it lacks the mean qualities 
 that give success to mediocrity, it will never 
 succeed. 
 
 "If we had an intimate acquaintance with our 
 epoch, we knew ourselves equally well, and we 
 preferred the idleness of thinkers to a purposeless 
 activity, indifference and pleasure to fruitless labors 
 which would have tired out our courage and worn 
 away the keen edge of our intellect. We had 
 analyzed social conditions as we sauntered through 
 the streets, laughing and smoking. Our reflections 
 and observations were none the less profound and 
 judicious for being evolved under such conditions. 
 
 "While remarking the servitude to which youth 
 is condemned, we were amazed at the brutal 
 indifference of the ruling powers to everything 
 connected with the mind, with the thought, with 
 poesy. What meaning glances Juste and I often 
 exchanged as we read the newspapers, ascertaining 
 what was happening in the political world, running 
 through the debates in the Chambers, discussing 
 the conduct of a court whose wilful ignorance can 
 be compared only to the vapidity of the courtiers, to 
 the mediocrity of the men who hedge about the
 
 Z. MARCAS II 
 
 new throne, all without wit or talent, without 
 learning or fame, without influence or eminence. 
 What a eulogy of the court of Charles X. is the 
 present court, if it can properly be so called! What 
 hatred for the country is shown in the naturalization 
 of the commonplace foreigners, men of no talent, 
 who are enthroned in the Chamber of Peers! What 
 a perversion of justice! What an insult to the 
 rising generation, to native-born ambition! We 
 looked at all these things as at a play, and we 
 groaned at them without coming to any decision as 
 to our own course. 
 
 "Juste, whom none came to consult, and who 
 would never have sought patients, was, at twenty- 
 five, a profound politician, a man of wonderful 
 aptitude in grasping the distant connection between 
 present and future conditions. He told me in 1831 
 what was likely to happen and did actually happen: 
 the assassinations, the conspiracies, the reign of the 
 Jews, the labored movements of France, the famine 
 of great minds in the upper spheres, and the 
 abundance of talent in the lowlands, where the 
 noblest courage is extinguished under the ashes of 
 the cigar. What should he do? His family wanted 
 him to be a physician. Did not that mean that he 
 must wait twenty years for a clientage? Do you 
 know what has become of him? No? Well, he is 
 a physician; but he has left France and is in Asia. 
 At this very moment he may be dying of fatigue in 
 a desert or falling beneath the blows of a horde of 
 savages, or he may be prime minister to some
 
 12 Z. MARCAS 
 
 Indian prince. My own vocation is action. Leaving 
 college at the age of twenty, it was not possible for 
 me to enter the army except as a common soldier; 
 and, being disgusted by the gloomy prospect afforded 
 by the legal profession, I have acquired the knowl- 
 edge necessary for a sailor. I propose to follow 
 Juste's example, I am leaving France where one 
 expends in making a place for one's self the time and 
 energy essential for the loftiest achievements. Do 
 as I do, my friends; I am going where a man may 
 guide his destiny as he wills. 
 
 "These momentous resolutions were formed 
 deliberately in the little room in the house on Rue 
 Corneille, or going to the Bal Musard, paying court 
 to merry damsels, leading a wild and apparently 
 reckless life. Our resolutions, our reflections 
 wavered for a long while. Marcas, our neighbor, 
 was, in a certain sense, the guide who led us to the 
 brink of the precipice or the roaring torrent, and 
 who caused us to measure its extent, who showed 
 us in advance what our fate would be if we should 
 let ourselves fall into it. It was he who put us on 
 our guard against the habit of postponing the day of 
 reckoning, which a man contracts with increasing 
 want and which hope seems to justify, by accepting 
 precarious positions from which he has to struggle 
 to extricate himself, by allowing himself to float 
 with the current of Paris, that monstrous harlot 
 who takes you up and drops you, smiles upon you 
 and turns her back upon you with equal facility, 
 who wears out the firmest wills by her captious
 
 Z. MARCAS 13 
 
 caprices Paris, where misfortune is the kept 
 mistress of chance. 
 
 "Our first meeting with Marcas dazzled us, so to 
 speak. On returning from our respective schools, 
 before the dinner hour, we always went up to our 
 room and remained there a moment, waiting for 
 each other, to find out if our plans for the evening 
 had undergone any change. One day, at four 
 o'clock, Juste saw Marcas on the stairway, and I 
 met him on the street. It was in November and 
 Marcas had no cloak; he wore shoes with heavy 
 soles, trousers with feet, made of double-milled 
 cassimere, a blue coat buttoned to the neck and 
 with a square collar, which gave him something of 
 a military air, especially as he wore a black cravat. 
 There was nothing remarkable in the costume, but 
 it accorded well with the man's bearing and his face. 
 My first impression at sight of him was neither 
 surprise, nor astonishment, nor melancholy, nor in- 
 terest, nor pity, but a curiosity which partook of all 
 those emotions. He was walking slowly, at a pace 
 that indicated profound melancholy, with his head 
 bent forward, but not hanging after the manner of 
 a man conscious of guilt. It was a large, powerful 
 head, which seemed to contain the treasures neces- 
 sary to one whose ambition was of the first order, 
 and it was apparently laden with thoughts; it bent 
 beneath the weight of mental suffering, but there 
 was not the slightest trace of remorse in its features. 
 The character of the face will be understood from a 
 single word of description. According to a theory
 
 14 Z. MARCAS 
 
 much in vogue, every human face bears some 
 resemblance to an animal. Marcas's animal was 
 the lion. His hair resembled a mane, his nose was 
 short, flat, broad and split at the end like a lion's; 
 his forehead was divided into two mighty lobes, like 
 a lion's, by a deep furrow. Lastly, his hairy cheek- 
 bones, to which the thinness of his cheeks gave 
 added prominence, his enormous mouth and his 
 hollow cheeks were creased by folds that imparted 
 a rugged sternness to his expression, while their 
 effect was heightened by a coloring in which 
 yellowish tones predominated. That almost awe- 
 inspiring face seemed illumined by two lights, the 
 eyes, black as jet, but of infinite sweetness, calm 
 and deep, full of thought. If we may be permitted 
 to use the expression, his eyes were humiliated. 
 Marcas was afraid to look at people, not so much on 
 his own account as on account of those upon whom 
 his fascinating glance might rest; he possessed a 
 power which he did not care to exercise; he spared 
 those who passed him by, he dreaded to be noticed. 
 It was not modesty, but resignation, not the Christ- 
 like resignation which implies charity, but resigna- 
 tion advised by the reason, which has pointed out 
 the momentary uselessness of talent, the impossi- 
 bility of attaining and living in the sphere for which 
 we are fitted. That glance could emit lightning at 
 certain moments. From that mouth issued a voice 
 of thunder, which was much like Mirabeau's. 
 
 " 'I have just seen a remarkable man in the 
 street,' I said to Juste as I entered the room.
 
 Z. MARC AS 15 
 
 " 'It must be our neighbor,' replied Juste, and he 
 proceeded to give an accurate description of the man 
 I had met. 'A man who lives like a wood louse 
 must look like that,' he said in conclusion. 
 " 'What humility and what grandeur!' 
 " 'One is a consequence of the other.' 
 " 'How many disappointed hopes! how many 
 plans defeated!' 
 
 " 'Seven leagues of ruins! obelisks, palaces, 
 towers: the ruins of Palmyra in the desert,' said 
 Juste jestingly. 
 
 "We dubbed our neighbor the Ruins of Palmyra. 
 When we went out to dine in the wretched restau- 
 rant on Rue de la Harpe, where we were subscribers, 
 we inquired the name of number 37, and we then 
 first heard the witching name of Z. Marcas. Like 
 the children that we were, we repeated the name a 
 hundred times or more with the most varied intona- 
 tions, absurd or melancholy, the pronunciation 
 lending itself readily to our sport. At times, Juste 
 succeeded in uttering the Z with the sound made by 
 a rocket when it is discharged, and, after making a 
 brilliant display of the first syllable, he depicted a fall 
 by the abrupt, hollow tone in which he pronounced 
 the last. 
 
 " 'Ah fa! where and how does he live?' 
 "Between that question and the harmless 
 espionage induced by curiosity, there was only the 
 brief interval required to put our plan in execution. 
 Instead of taking a stroll, we returned to our room, 
 each armed with a novel. And we read, listening
 
 16 Z. MARCAS 
 
 the while. We heard, in the profound silence of our 
 attic, the soft, regular sound produced by the 
 respiration of a sleeping man. 
 
 " 'He is asleep,' I said to Juste, noticing the 
 sound first. 
 
 " 'At seven o'clock!' replied the Doctor. 
 
 "That was the name I gave to Juste, who called 
 me the Keeper of the Seals. 
 
 " 'A man must be very unhappy to sleep as much 
 as our neighbor sleeps,' I said, jumping on the 
 commode, armed with an enormous knife, in the 
 handle of which there was a corkscrew. 
 
 "I made a round hole as large as a five-sou piece 
 in the partition. I had not reflected that there was 
 no light in the room, and when I put my eye to the 
 hole I saw nothing but darkness. About one o'clock 
 in the morning, when we had finished our novels 
 and were preparing to retire, we heard a noise in 
 our neighbor's room; he rose, struck a match and 
 lighted his candle. I remounted the commode. I 
 then saw Marcas seated at his table copying legal 
 documents. His room was half the size of ours, the 
 bed was in a recess beside the door, for the space 
 taken by the corridor, which ended at his den, was 
 subtracted from it; but the lot of land on which the 
 house was built was evidently a trapezium in shape 
 and the party wall in the rear of his attic was 
 narrower than the front wall of the house. He had 
 no fireplace, but a small white porcelain stove, 
 covered with green spots, the funnel of which went 
 out through a hole in the roof. Wretched reddish
 
 Z. MARCAS 17 
 
 curtains hung at the window, which was in the 
 rear wall. An armchair, a table, a common chair 
 and a rickety night table completed the furni- 
 ture of the room. He kept his linen in a cupboard 
 cut in the wall. The paper on the walls was 
 hideously ugly. It was evident that no one but a 
 servant had ever occupied the room until Marcas 
 came there. 
 
 " 'What did you see?' the Doctor asked me as I 
 descended from my perch. 
 
 " 'Look for yourself!' I replied. 
 
 "The next morning at nine o'clock Marcas was in 
 bed. He had breakfasted on a Bologna sausage: we 
 saw on a plate, among crumbs of bread, the remains 
 of that delicacy, which was well known to us. 
 Marcas was asleep. He did not wake until eleven. 
 He returned to the copy he had been at work on the 
 night before, which lay on the table. When we 
 went downstairs we inquired the price of the room 
 and learned that it was let for fifteen francs per 
 month. In a few days we were fully acquainted 
 with Z. Marcas's mode of life. He made copies, at 
 so much the line doubtless, for a contractor for 
 clerical work who lived in the courtyard of Sainte- 
 Chapelle; he worked half the night; after sleeping 
 from six o'clock to ten, he rose and worked again 
 until three o'clock; then he went out to deliver his 
 copies before dinner, and dined at Mizerai's on Rue 
 Michel-le-Comte, for nine sous a meal; then he 
 went home and to bed at six o'clock. We were 
 satisfied that Marcas did not say fifteen sentences in
 
 18 Z. MARCAS 
 
 a month; he never spoke to anyone, nor did he ever 
 say a word to himself in his miserable garret. 
 
 " 'The Ruins of Palmyra are terribly silent, 
 there's no doubt about that!' cried Juste. 
 
 "There was something profoundly significant in 
 this silence on the part of a man whose exterior was 
 so imposing. Sometimes, when we met him, we 
 exchanged glances pregnant with thought, but 
 followed by no treaty. By insensible degrees we 
 came to feel a profound admiration for the man, 
 although neither of us could understand its cause. 
 Was it his simple habits, his monastic regularity, his 
 reciuse-like frugality, his unexacting occupation, 
 which allowed his mind to remain inactive or to 
 work, and which denoted either that he was awaiting 
 some lucky chance or that he had determined what 
 direction to give his life? After walking a long time 
 among the Ruins of Palmyra, we forgot them, we 
 were so young! Then came the carnival, the 
 Parisian carnival, which will eventually overshadow 
 the carnival of Venice, and will attract all Europe to 
 Paris a few years hence, if officious prefects of 
 police do not interfere. Gambling ought to be 
 tolerated during the carnival; but the imbecile 
 moralists who have caused its suppression are foolish 
 schemers who will not rehabilitate that necessary 
 canker until it is proved that France leaves millions 
 of money in Germany. 
 
 "That joyous carnival season brought great 
 destitution upon us as upon all students. We had 
 disposed of all our objects of luxury; we had sold
 
 Z. MARCAS 19 
 
 one of our coats, one pair of boots, one of our waist- 
 coats, one of everything that we had in duplicate, 
 except our friends. We lived on bread and scraps 
 of pork, we walked cautiously, we worked; we 
 owed two months' rent and we were certain of 
 having an account of sixty or eighty lines each with 
 the concierge, amounting to forty or fifty francs in 
 all. We were no longer brusque or merry as we 
 crossed the tiled landing at the foot of the staircase, 
 and we often went from the lower step into the 
 street at a single bound. On the day when the 
 tobacco for our pipes was exhausted we noticed that 
 for several days we had been eating our bread with- 
 out any sort of butter. Our sadness was heart- 
 rending. 
 
 " 'No more tobacco!' said the Doctor. 
 
 " 'No more cloak!' said the Keeper of the Seals. 
 
 " 'Ah! you rascals, you dressed like Longjumeau 
 postilions! you would array yourselves in barge- 
 men's costume, sup in the morning and breakfast 
 in the evening at Very's, and sometimes at the 
 Rocker de Cancale! To your dry crust, messieurs! 
 You ought,' I said, raising my voice, 'to lie under 
 your beds, you are unworthy to lie on top of them.' 
 
 " 'Very true, O Keeper of the Seals, but there's 
 no more tobacco!' said Juste. 
 
 " 'It is time to write to our mothers, our aunts, 
 our sisters, that we haven't any linen, that life in 
 Paris would wear out knitted iron wire. We will 
 solve an interesting problem in chemistry by chang- 
 ing linen into cash. '
 
 2O Z. MARCAS 
 
 " 'We must live until we get their reply. 
 
 " 'Very well, I will go and negotiate a loan with 
 such of my friends as have not yet exhausted their 
 capital.' 
 
 " 'What will you get?' 
 
 " 'Get! ten francs!' I replied proudly. 
 
 "Marcas had overheard everything; it was noon; 
 he knocked at our door and said: 
 
 " 'Here is some tobacco, messieurs; you can 
 return it to me when convenient.' 
 
 "We were struck dumb not by the offer, which 
 we accepted, but by the fulness and depth and rich 
 quality of that voice, which can be compared to 
 nothing but the fourth string of Paganini's violin. 
 Marcas disappeared without awaiting our thanks. 
 Juste and I gazed at each other in perfect silence. 
 To be assisted by someone evidently poorer than 
 ourselves! Juste bestirred himself to write to all 
 the branches of his family, and I went to negotiate 
 the loan. I procured twenty francs from a native 
 of my own province. In those unhappy good old 
 days gambling still flourished, and in its veins, hard 
 as the gangues of Brazil, young men, risking little, 
 seized the chance of winning a few pieces of gold. 
 My compatriot had some Turkish tobacco brought 
 from Constantinople by a naval officer; he gave me 
 about as much as we had received from Z. Marcas. 
 I brought the rich cargo back to port, and we made 
 a triumphal visit to our neighbor to carry him a 
 sumptuous blond periwig of Turkish tobacco in 
 return for his caporal.
 
 Z. MARCAS 21 
 
 " 'You did not wish to owe me anything/ he 
 said; 'you give me gold for copper; you are children 
 good fellows ' 
 
 "Those three sentences, uttered in different 
 tones, were differently accented. The words were 
 nothing, but the accent Ah! the accent made us 
 friends of ten years' standing. Marcas had hidden 
 his copies when he heard us coming, so we realized 
 that it would be an impertinence to mention his 
 means of existence, and we were ashamed of 
 having played the spy upon him. His cupboard 
 was open, it contained only two shirts, a white 
 cravat and a razor. The razor made me shudder. 
 A mirror that was worth perhaps a hundred sous 
 was hanging by the window. There was a sort of 
 wild grandeur in the man's simple and infrequent 
 gestures. The Doctor and I looked at each other as 
 if to decide how we should reply. Juste, seeing that 
 I was tongue-tied, said to Marcas, in a jesting tone: 
 
 " 'Does monsieur cultivate literature?' 
 
 " 'I have been careful to do nothing of the sort!' 
 replied Marcas, 'or I should not be so rich.' 
 
 " 'I thought,' said I, 'that nothing but poetry, in 
 these days, could keep a man in such wretched 
 quarters as ours.' 
 
 "My remark made Marcas smile, and the smile 
 gave charm to his yellow face. 
 
 " 'Ambition is no less harsh to those who do not 
 succeed,' he said. 'So do you, who are beginning 
 life, follow the beaten paths; do not think of 
 becoming men of mark, it would be your ruin!'
 
 22 Z. MARCAS 
 
 " 'Do you advise us to remain what we are?' 
 said the Doctor with a smile. 
 
 "There is such a childlike, infectious charm in 
 the jesting of youth, that Juste's question made 
 Marcas smile once more. 
 
 " 'What can have happened to teach you such 
 shocking philosophy as that?' I asked him. 
 
 " 'I forgot once more that chance is the result of 
 a vast equation of which we do not know all the 
 roots. When one starts from zero to arrive at 
 unity, the chances against success are incalculable. 
 For the ambitious, Paris is an immense roulette 
 table, and every young man believes that he has 
 found a winning combination.' 
 
 "He offered us the tobacco I had given him and 
 invited us to smoke with him; the Doctor went to 
 get our pipes, Marcas loaded his, then came and sat 
 down in our room, bringing the tobacco: he had 
 only one chair besides his armchair. Nimble as a 
 squirrel, Juste ran downstairs and reappeared with 
 a waiter bringing three bottles of Bordeaux, a piece 
 of Brie cheese and some bread. 
 
 " 'The deuce, fifteen francs!' I said to myself, 
 and I was right to a sou. 
 
 "Juste gravely deposited the five remaining 
 francs on the mantel. 
 
 "There is an immeasurable difference between 
 the man in society and the man who lives very near 
 to nature. When he was once captured, Toussaint 
 Louverture died without uttering a word. Napoleon, 
 when he was once upon his sea-girt rock, chattered
 
 Z. MARCAS 23 
 
 like a magpie; he tried to explain. Z. Marcas 
 committed the same mistake, but for our benefit 
 only. Silence in all its majesty is found only in the 
 savage. There is no criminal, who, when he has 
 the opportunity to let his secrets fall into the basket 
 with his head, does not feel the purely social need 
 of telling them to some one. I am wrong. We 
 have seen one of the Iroquois of Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain place Parisian nature on a level with the 
 nature of the wild man: a man, a republican, a 
 conspirator, a Frenchman, an old man, surpassed 
 all that we know of the steadfastness of the negro, 
 and all the tranquil contempt in defeat that Cooper 
 attributes to the Redskins. Morey, the Guatimozin 
 of the Mountain, maintained an attitude unparalleled 
 in the annals of European justice. 
 
 ' "This is what Marcas told us that morning, inter- 
 spersing his narrative with slices of bread spread 
 with cheese and washed down with divers glasses 
 of wine. All the tobacco disappeared. Now and 
 then the cabs that crossed Place de POdeon and the 
 omnibuses that ploughed through it, added their dull 
 rumbling, as if to show that Paris was still there. 
 
 "His family was of Vitre, his father and mother 
 lived on fifteen hundred francs a year. He had been 
 educated free of charge in a seminary and had 
 refused to become a priest: he had felt within him- 
 self the ardent heat of an overpowering ambition, 
 and he had come on foot to Paris, at the age of 
 twenty, possessed of two hundred francs. He had 
 taken his degree in law, working meanwhile for a
 
 24 Z. MARCAS 
 
 solicitor, whose head clerk he had become. He 
 had a doctor's degree in law, he was familiar with 
 the old and the new legislation, he could trace them 
 both back to the most famous lawyers. He knew 
 the law of nations and was familiar with all the 
 European treaties and the principles of international 
 comity. He had studied men and things in five 
 capitals: London, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg 
 and Constantinople. No one knew the precedents of 
 the Chamber better than he. For five years he 
 had done the Chambers for a daily paper. He was 
 an admirable extemporaneous speaker, and could 
 talk a long while in that deep melodious voice 
 which had penetrated to our hearts. He proved to 
 us by the story of his life that he was a great 
 orator, concise, serious, and still possessed of per- 
 suasive eloquence; he suggested Berryer in his 
 fervid periods and his power to sway the masses; 
 he resembled Monsieur Thiers in finesse and 
 adroitness, but he would have been less diffuse, less 
 embarrassed to conclude. He expected to attain 
 power at once without being hampered by doctrines 
 necessarily espoused at first by one in opposition, 
 and likely to prove an annoyance later to the 
 minister. 
 
 "Marcas had learned everything that a genuine 
 statesman ought to know; his astonishment was 
 unbounded therefore when he had occasion to 
 probe the profound ignorance of the men prominent 
 in public affairs in France. If his vocation had 
 counseled study, nature had been very lavish of
 
 Z. MARCAS 25 
 
 her gifts, she had given him all those qualities that 
 cannot be acquired: keen penetration, self-control, 
 mental dexterity, swiftness of judgment, decision, 
 and, above all, fertility of methods, which is the 
 genius of such men as he. 
 
 "When he deemed himself sufficiently armed, 
 Marcas found France torn by the internal dissensions 
 born of the triumph of the Orleans branch over the 
 elder branch. The stage of political struggles has 
 evidently changed. Civil war cannot last long in 
 these days, it will not again extend to the provinces. 
 There will be only one more contest in France, of 
 short duration, at the very seat of government, and 
 it will put an end to the moral warfare which emi- 
 nent minds will have waged previously. This state 
 of things will endure as long as France retains its 
 strange form of government, which is not analogous 
 to that of any other country; there is no more 
 resemblance between the English government and 
 ours than between the two countries themselves. 
 Marcas's place therefore was in the political hurly- 
 burly. As he was poor and unable to procure an 
 election, he must make himself manifest suddenly. 
 He resolved to make the most costly of all sacrifices 
 to a man of superior talents to subordinate himself 
 to some wealthy and ambitious deputy, for whom 
 he would work. Another Bonaparte, he looked 
 about for his Barras; this other Colbert hoped to 
 find a Mazarin. He rendered enormous services; 
 he rendered them and, by the way, he did not 
 strut, and play the great man and shriek ingratitude
 
 26 Z. MARCAS 
 
 he rendered them in the hope that his patron 
 would put him in a position to be chosen deputy: 
 Marcas desired nothing more than the loan of a 
 sufficient sum to purchase a house in Paris, in order 
 to satisfy the requirements of the law. Richard III. 
 wanted nothing but his horse. 
 
 "In three years Marcas created one of the fifty 
 or more alleged political notabilities who are the 
 rackets with which two cunning hands toss cabinet 
 portfolios back and forth, precisely as the manager 
 of a puppet-show jostles Punch and the police-officer 
 against each other on his open-air stage, hoping 
 always to increase his receipts. That man existed 
 only by favor of Marcas; but he had just enough 
 wit to appreciate the worth of his editor, to know 
 that Marcas, when he had once attained power, 
 would remain as an indispensable man, while he 
 would be banished to the polar colonies of the 
 Luxembourg. He resolved therefore to place in- 
 superable obstacles in the way of his manager's 
 advancement, and concealed that thought beneath 
 the shibboleth of absolute devotion. Like all small- 
 minded men, he had marvelous skill in dissembling; 
 and then he advanced rapidly in the path of 
 ingratitude, for he must kill off Marcas, in order not 
 to be killed off by him. Those two men, apparently 
 so closely united, hated each other as soon as one 
 of them had deceived the other. The statesman 
 was a member of a ministry, Marcas remained in 
 the opposition to prevent any attack upon his 
 minister, for whom, by a master-stroke, he obtained
 
 Z. MARCAS 27 
 
 laudatory words from the opposition. To avoid 
 rewarding his lieutenant, the statesman alleged the 
 impracticability of giving a place to a member of the 
 opposition abruptly and without clever manoeuvring. 
 Marcas had relied upon an office to put him in 
 position to obtain, by means of a marriage, the 
 eligibility he so earnestly desired. He was thirty- 
 two years old, he foresaw the speedy dissolution of 
 the Chamber. Having caught the minister in the 
 act of dealing in bad faith with him, he overthrew 
 him, or at all events contributed largely to his fall, 
 and rolled him in the mire. 
 
 "Every fallen minister must, in order to regain 
 his position, show that he is to be feared; this man, 
 whom the royal eloquence had intoxicated, who had 
 believed himself to be safe in his ministerial office 
 for a long while to come, realized the mistake he 
 had made; when he confessed it, he rendered some 
 slight service in a financial way to Marcas, who had 
 run in debt during the struggle. He gave his support 
 to the newspaper on which Marcas was employed, 
 and had him made its manager. Although he 
 despised the man, Marcas, who was accepting 
 earnest-money, so to speak, consented to seem to 
 make common cause with the fallen minister. 
 Without unmasking as yet all the batteries of his 
 superiority, Marcas pushed forward farther than 
 before; he displayed half of his cunning. The 
 ministry lasted only a hundred and eighty days; it 
 was overwhelmed. Marcas, having come in contact 
 with certain deputies, had handled them like putty,
 
 28 Z. MARCAS 
 
 leaving in the minds of all of them an exalted idea 
 of his talents. Once more his manikin had a seat 
 in a ministry, and the newspaper became a minis- 
 terial organ. The ministry combined it with another 
 sheet, for the sole purpose of crushing Marcas, who, 
 as a result of the fusion, was obliged to make way 
 for a rich and insolent rival, already well-known 
 and with his foot in the stirrup. Marcas was thrown 
 back into the most profound destitution; his arrogant 
 protege well knew into what an abyss he was hurling 
 him. Where should he go? The ministerial jour- 
 nals, being secretly warned against him, would 
 have none of him. The organs of the opposition 
 were reluctant to admit him to their offices. Marcas 
 could not go over to the republicans or the legiti- 
 mists, two parties whose triumph means the overturn 
 of existing institutions. 
 
 " 'Ambitious men love realities,' he said to us with 
 a smile. 
 
 "He made a living by occasional articles relative 
 to certain commercial enterprises. He worked upon 
 one of the encyclopaedias which speculation, not 
 learning, attempted to produce. At last a newspaper 
 was founded, which was destined to last only two 
 years, but for which Marcas's services as editor 
 were sought. Thereupon he renewed his acquaint- 
 ance with the minister's enemies, he was able to 
 join the party that sought the downfall of the 
 ministry; and when his pickaxe once had an oppor- 
 tunity to work, the administration was demolished. 
 
 "Marcas's newspaper had been dead six months;
 
 Z. MARCAS 29 
 
 he had been unable to find employment anywhere, 
 he was represented as a dangerous man, calumny 
 was busy with his name: he had wrecked a vast 
 financial and industrial undertaking by an article or 
 two and a pamphlet. He was known to be the 
 mouthpiece of a banker, who, it was said, had paid 
 him handsomely and from whom he expected some 
 favors, of course, in return for his devotion. Dis- 
 gusted with men and things, exhausted by a five 
 years' struggle, Marcas, who was looked upon as a 
 condottiere rather than a great captain, crushed by 
 the necessity of earning his bread, which prevented 
 him from gaining ground, driven to despair by the 
 influence of money on men's thoughts, and reduced 
 to the most horrible destitution Marcas, I say, had 
 retreated to his attic, where he earned thirty sous a 
 day, the amount absolutely necessary for his needs. 
 Meditation had stretched a desert, as it were, about 
 him. He read the newspapers in order to keep 
 abreast of the times. Pozzo di Borgo was in the 
 same plight for some time. Marcas was evidently 
 maturing plans for a serious attack, he was accustom- 
 ing himself to dissimulation perhaps, and was chas- 
 tising himself for his errors by Pythagorean silence. 
 He did not disclose his reasons to us. 
 
 "It is impossible to describe the high comedy 
 scenes that lay beneath this algebraic condensation 
 of his life: the fruitless patrolling at the feet of 
 elusive fortune, the long pursuits through the 
 Parisian underbrush, the hurried journeys of the 
 petitioner, gasping for breath, the experiments tried
 
 30 Z. MARCAS 
 
 upon idiots, the lofty projects rendered abortive by 
 the influence of a foolish woman, the conferences 
 with rich tradesmen, who insisted that their funds 
 should yield peerages and boxes at the opera, as 
 well as large interest; the hopes that reached the 
 summit of fulfilment only to fall back upon the 
 breakers; the marvels performed in reconciling 
 opposed interests, which separated after walking 
 happily together for a week; the constantly recur- 
 ring chagrin of seeing an imbecile decorated with the 
 Legion of Honor, and, although ignorant as a clerk, 
 preferred to the man of talent; and then what Marcas 
 called the stratagems of idiocy: you make an 
 impression on a man, he appears to be convinced, he 
 nods his head, and everything seems to be all right; 
 the next morning that elastic mass, compressed for 
 a moment, has resumed its former shape during the 
 night, it is puffed up even more than before, and 
 you must begin anew; you work away at it until 
 you find that you are not dealing with a man at all, 
 but with a gummy substance that dries up in the sun. 
 "These innumerable discomfitures, this immense 
 loss of human strength wasted upon barren fields, 
 the difficulty of effecting any good result, the 
 incredible ease with which one can do evil; the two 
 great games he had played, twice won, twice lost; 
 the hatred of a statesman, a blockhead with a 
 painted mask and false hair, but a man in whom 
 people believed; all these things, great and small, 
 had not discouraged Marcas, but had prostrated him 
 for the moment. In the days when money had
 
 Z. MARCAS 31 
 
 come to him, his hands had not retained it, he had 
 given himself the divine pleasure of sending it all to 
 his family, his sisters, his brothers, his old father. 
 Like the fallen Napoleon, he needed only thirty sous 
 a day, and any man of energy can always earn his 
 thirty sous in Paris. 
 
 "When Marcas had finished the story of his life, 
 which was interspersed with reflections, maxims 
 and remarks that indicated the great politician, it 
 required only a few questions and answers concern- 
 ing the trend of affairs in France and in Europe, to 
 convince us that Marcas was a genuine statesman, 
 for men may be quickly and readily judged as soon 
 as they consent to enter the domain of difficulties: 
 there is a shibboleth for men of superior mind, and 
 we were of the tribe of modern Levites, but were 
 not yet within the temple. As I have told you, our 
 frivolous life concealed the projects which Juste for 
 his part has already executed, and those which I am 
 on the point of putting into execution. 
 
 "After the conversation I have described, we all 
 went out together, and, pending the arrival of the 
 dinner hour, we walked in the Luxembourg garden, 
 notwithstanding the cold. During that walk our 
 conversation, still serious in tone, touched upon the 
 deplorable facts of the political situation. Each of 
 us contributed his observation or his aphorism, his 
 jest or his maxim. We no longer dwelt exclusively 
 upon the life of colossal proportions which Marcas, 
 the soldier of political battles, had depicted to us. 
 It was no longer the depressing monologue of the
 
 32 Z. MARCAS 
 
 I 
 
 navigator stranded in the garret of the Hotel 
 Corneille, but a dialogue in which two well informed 
 young men, who had formed their own opinions 
 concerning the times in which they lived, sought, 
 under the guidance of a man of talent, to cast some 
 light upon their own future. 
 
 " 'Why,' Juste asked him, 'did you not patiently 
 await an opportunity, why did you not imitate the 
 only man who has succeeded in keeping his head 
 always above water since the Revolution of July?' 
 
 " 'Did I not tell you that we do not know all the 
 roots of chance? Carrel was in a position identical 
 with that of the orator you mention. That dark- 
 browed young man, that caustic mind carried a 
 whole government in his brain; the man you refer 
 to has no other idea than to ride en croupe behind 
 every event: of the two, Carrel was the strong man. 
 Well, one becomes a minister, Carrel remains a 
 journalist; the incomplete but crafty man lives; 
 Carrel dies. I ask you to observe that that man has 
 spent fifteen years in making his way and that he 
 has as yet only partially succeeded; he may be 
 caught and crushed between two wagons loaded 
 with intrigues on the high road to power. He has no 
 house: he has not, like Metternich, the palace of 
 favor, or, like Villele, the sheltering roof of a compact 
 majority. I do not believe that the present form of 
 government will exist ten years hence. But, even 
 supposing that that melancholy joy is in store for 
 me, I shall not be in a position to avail myself of it, 
 for, in order not to be swept away in the upheaval
 
 Z. MARC AS 33 
 
 which I foresee, I must already have attained a lofty 
 position.' 
 
 " 'What upheaval?' said Juste. 
 
 "'AUGUST, 1830,' replied Marcas solemnly, 
 stretching out his hand toward Paris, 'AUGUST, 
 1830, brought about by youth, which bound the 
 sheaves, by intelligence, which ripened the harvest, 
 forgot the part borne by youth and intelligence! 
 Youth will burst like the boiler of a steam-engine. 
 Youth has no outlet in France, it is heaping up an 
 avalanche of unappreciated talents, of legitimate, 
 restless ambitions; it marries seldom, families do 
 not know what to do with their children. What 
 shock will shake those masses? I do not know; but 
 they will rush headlong into the present state of 
 affairs and reduce it to chaos. The laws of fluctua- 
 tion govern successive generations, and those laws 
 the Roman Empire disregarded when the barbarians 
 appeared on the scene. To-day the barbarians are 
 the neglected talents. The laws of overflow are 
 acting at this moment, slowly, secretly, among us. 
 The government is the great culprit, it slights the two 
 powers to which it owes everything, it has allowed 
 its hands to be bound by the absurdities of the con- 
 tract, it is all ready to be victimized. Louis XIV., 
 Napoleon, England, were and are greedy to obtain 
 intelligent youth. In France, youth is condemned 
 by the new regime, by the hateful conditions of the 
 elective principle, by the vices of the ministerial 
 constitution. If you examine the make-up of the 
 Elective Chamber, you will find no deputies of 
 3
 
 34 Z- MARCAS 
 
 thirty or younger: the youth of Richelieu and 
 Mazarin, the youth of Turenne and Colbert, the 
 youth of Pitt and Saint- Just, the youth of Napoleon 
 and Prince Metternich would find no place there. 
 Burke, Sheridan, Fox could find no seat in that 
 chamber. Even if the political majority had been 
 placed at twenty-one years and all restrictions of 
 every sort upon eligibility had been removed, the 
 departments would still have chosen the present 
 deputies, men without any sort of political talent, 
 incapable of speaking without murdering the gram- 
 mar, and among whom hardly a single statesman 
 has appeared in ten years. We can divine the 
 causes of future events, but we cannot foresee the 
 events themselves. At this moment the whole 
 younger generation is being driven into republican- 
 ism, because it must inevitably see in the republic 
 its emancipation. It will remember the young 
 representatives of the people and the young generals 
 of a past age! The folly of the government is 
 comparable only to its avarice.' 
 
 "That day had a marked influence on our lives. 
 Marcas strengthened our determination to leave 
 France, where young men of eminent capacity, 
 overflowing with energy, were crushed under the 
 weight of upstart mediocrities, jealous and insatiable. 
 We dined together on Rue de la Harpe. Thence- 
 forth we felt the most respectful affection for him; 
 he, in return, accorded us most efficient assistance 
 in the sphere of ideas. The man knew everything, 
 he had gone to the bottom of everything. He
 
 Z. MARCAS 35 
 
 studied the political globe for us, looking for the 
 country where the chances were most numerous and 
 at the same time most favorable to the success of 
 our plans. He marked out for us the points to 
 which our studies should be directed; he urged us to 
 hasten, dwelling upon the value of time, insisting 
 that the emigration would certainly take place, that 
 its effect would be to rob France of the cream of her 
 energetic, youthful minds; that those minds, neces- 
 sarily keen and far-seeing, would choose the best 
 places and that it was most important to anticipate 
 them. After that, we often sat together far into 
 the night, by lamplight. Our generous master 
 wrote several notes for us two for Juste and three 
 for me which contain admirable counsel, the infor- 
 mation that experience alone can give, the land- 
 marks that only genius can set up. In those pages, 
 saturated with tobacco smoke and covered with 
 hieroglyphic characters, there are signposts to for- 
 tune, predictions of unerring accuracy. There are 
 prophetic suggestions concerning certain points in 
 America and Asia, which were fulfilled before and 
 after Juste and 1 were able to start. 
 
 "Marcas had reached, like ourselves, the lowest 
 stage of destitution; to be sure he earned enough to 
 keep him alive, but he had neither linen nor clothes 
 nor shoes. He did not pretend to be better than he 
 was: he had dreamed of a luxurious life when he 
 dreamed of wielding power. Therefore he did not 
 recognize himself as the real Marcas. He abandoned 
 his exterior to the caprice of real life. He lived by
 
 36 Z. MARC AS 
 
 the breath of his ambition, he dreamed of vengeance 
 and rebuked himself for yielding to so despicable a 
 sentiment. The true statesman should be, above 
 all things, indifferent to vulgar passions; he ought, 
 like the scientist, to take a passionate interest in 
 naught besides matters pertaining to his special 
 science. It was in those days of poverty that Mar- 
 cas seemed to us truly great, even awe-inspiring; 
 there was something terrifying in his glance, which 
 viewed a different world from that upon which the 
 eyes of ordinary mortals rest. He was to us a sub- 
 ject of study and astonishment, for youth which of 
 us has not experienced it? youth feels keenly the 
 need of admiration; it loves to cling to somebody, it 
 is naturally inclined to subordinate itself to men 
 whom it deems superior, even as it devotes itself to 
 great things. Our wonder was aroused most of all 
 by his indifference in the matter of sentiment: 
 woman had never disturbed his life. When we 
 mentioned that everlasting subject of conversation 
 among Frenchmen, he said simply: 
 
 " 'Dresses cost too much!' 
 
 "He saw the glance Juste and I exchanged, and 
 he continued: 
 
 " 'Yes, they cost too much. The woman you 
 buy, and she is the least expensive, wants a great 
 deal of money; the woman who gives herself to you 
 takes all your time! Woman extinguishes all 
 energy, all ambition. Napoleon reduced her to 
 what she should be. In that respect he was 
 great, he did not yield to the ruinous fancies of
 
 Z. MARCAS 37 
 
 Louis XIV. and Louis XV.; but he loved in secret, 
 none the less.' 
 
 "We discovered that, like Pitt, who took England 
 to wife, Marcas wore France on his heart; he wor- 
 shiped his fatherland as an idol; he had not a 
 single thought that was not for his country. His 
 frenzy at the thought that he held in his hands 
 the remedy for the disease whose virulence sad- 
 dened him, and that he had not the power to 
 apply it, gnawed at his heart incessantly; but that 
 frenzy was made even more acute by the infe- 
 riority of France as compared to Russia and Eng- 
 land. France in the third rank! That exclamation 
 constantly recurred in his conversation. The inter- 
 nal malady of his country had attacked his 
 entrails. He characterized as the petty bickerings 
 of a street porter the disputes of the court with 
 the Chamber, evidenced by the incessant changes 
 and agitation, which impaired the prosperity of 
 the country. 
 
 " 'They give us peace by discounting the future/ 
 he said. 
 
 "One evening Juste and I were busy at work 
 and absolutely silent. Marcas had risen to work at 
 his copying, for he had refused our services, despite 
 our insistence. We had offered to divide his task 
 with him, so that he would have only a third of the 
 monotonous work to do; he lost his temper, so we 
 insisted no farther. We heard the sound of fine 
 boots in our corridor, and we raised our heads 
 and looked at each other. Somebody knocked at 
 
 189933
 
 38 Z. MARCAS 
 
 Marcas's door, the key of which was always left in 
 the lock. We heard our great man say: 
 
 "'Come in!' 
 
 "Then: 
 
 " 'You here, monsieur?' 
 
 " 'Myself,' replied the ex-minister. 
 
 "It was the obscure martyr's Diocletian. 
 
 "He and our neighbor talked together for some 
 time in undertones. Suddenly Marcas, whose 
 voice we had heard only at rare intervals, as is 
 usually the case in an interview in which the one 
 who seeks it begins by making a preliminary state- 
 ment, burst out at a proposition which we could 
 not hear. 
 
 " 'You would laugh at me,' he said, 'if I trusted 
 you. The Jesuits have gone by, but Jesuitism is 
 everlasting. There is no good faith either in your 
 Machiavelianism or in your generosity. You know 
 what to expect; but no one knows what to expect 
 with you. Your court is composed of owls who are 
 afraid of the light, of old men who tremble before 
 the younger generation or else give no thought to it. 
 The government models itself on the court. You 
 went forth to seek the remains of the Empire, as the 
 Restoration enrolled the sharpshooters of Louis 
 XIV. Thus far the backward movements of fear and 
 cowardice have been taken for the manoeuvres of 
 skilful generalship; but the dangers will come, and 
 the youth will rise as in 1790. They did grand 
 things in those days. At this moment you change 
 ministers as a sick man changes his position in bed.
 
 Z. MARCAS 39 
 
 These fluctuations display the weakness of your 
 government. You have a system of political 
 chicanery which will be turned against you, for 
 France will tire of this shuffling. France will not 
 tell you that it is tired, no one ever knows how he 
 dies, the wherefore is the business of the historian; 
 but you will certainly die because you did not call 
 upon the youth of France to exert its strength and 
 its energy, its loyalty and its ardor; because you 
 hated capable men, because you did not with loving 
 hand select them from that glorious generation, 
 because you preferred mediocrity in everything. 
 You come to ask for my support; but you belong to 
 that incapable mass, rendered hideous by self- 
 interest, which is trembling and shriveling up, and 
 which, because it is dwindling away to nothing, 
 seeks to make France do the same. My energetic 
 nature, my ideas would have the effect of a poison 
 on you; twice you have tricked me, twice I have 
 overturned you, as you know. It must be a very 
 serious matter that can bring us together a third 
 time. I would kill myself if I allowed myself to be 
 made a dupe, for I should despair of myself: I should 
 be the culprit, not you.' 
 
 "Thereupon we heard the most humble words, 
 the most heartfelt entreaties not to deprive the 
 country of his superior talents. He spoke of the 
 country, and Marcas uttered a significant Oho! he 
 laughed in the face of his pretended patron. The 
 statesman became more explicit; he acknowledged 
 the superiority of his former adviser, he agreed to
 
 40 Z. MARC AS 
 
 put him in a position to remain in the administration, 
 to become a deputy; then he offered him an impor- 
 tant office, saying to him that thenceforth he, the 
 minister, would subordinate himself to one whose 
 lieutenant and nothing more he was qualified to be. 
 He was included in the new ministerial combination, 
 and he did not choose to return to power unless 
 Marcas had a place suited to his deserts; he had 
 mentioned that condition and Marcas had been 
 included as a necessity. 
 
 "Marcas refused. 
 
 " 'I have never been placed in a position to fulfil 
 my obligations, here is an opportunity to be faithful 
 to my promises, and you fail me!' 
 
 "Marcas made no reply to this last sentence. 
 We heard the boots again in the corridor, and the 
 sound moved toward the staircase. 
 
 " 'Marcas! Marcas!' we cried in unison, rushing 
 into his room, 'why do you refuse? He was acting 
 in good faith. His conditions are honorable. 
 Furthermore, you will see the ministers.' 
 
 "In a twinkling we gave Marcas a hundred 
 reasons. The future minister's words rang true; as 
 far as we could judge without seeing him, he was 
 not lying. 
 
 " 'I have no clothes!' Marcas replied. 
 
 " 'Rely on us,' said Juste, glancing at me. 
 
 "Marcas had the courage to trust us, a gleam 
 shot from his eyes, he ran his hand through his hair 
 and threw it back from his forehead with a gesture 
 denoting faith in good fortune, and when he had, so
 
 Z. MARCAS 41 
 
 to speak, removed the veil from his face, we saw a 
 man who was an utter stranger to us; a sublime 
 Marcas, Marcas with power in his grasp, the mind 
 in its element, the bird restored to freedom, the fish 
 back in the water, the horse galloping over the 
 prairie. It was momentary; the brow became dark 
 once more, he had a sort of vision of his destiny. 
 Limping doubt followed close behind white-winged 
 hope. We left the man to himself. 
 
 " 'Well,' I said to the Doctor, 'we have promised, 
 but how are we to do it?' 
 
 " 'Let us sleep on it,' Juste replied, 'and to-mor- 
 row morning we will exchange ideas.' 
 
 "The next morning we took a turn in the Luxem- 
 bourg garden. 
 
 "We had had time to reflect on the occurrence of 
 the night before, and we were equally surprised by 
 Marcas's lack of shrewdness in the petty affairs of 
 life, whereas he had no difficulty in solving the most 
 puzzling problems of practical or theoretical politics. 
 But such exalted natures are all likely to stumble 
 over grains of sand, to miss the most promising 
 opportunities for lack of a thousand francs. That is 
 the history of Napoleon, who did not start for India 
 because he had no boots. 
 
 " 'What have you thought of?' Juste asked me. 
 
 " 'Well, I have thought of a way of obtaining 
 credit for a complete outfit.' 
 
 " 'From whom?' 
 
 " 'From Humann.' 
 
 "'How?'
 
 42 Z. MARCAS 
 
 " 'Humann, my dear fellow, never goes to his 
 customers, his customers go to him, so that he 
 doesn't know whether I am rich or poor; he simply 
 knows that I am fashionable and that the clothes he 
 makes look well on me. I am going to tell him that 
 an uncle from the provinces has dropped in on me, 
 whose indifference in the matter of dress is most 
 prejudicial to me in the best society, where I am 
 looking for a wife. He would not be Humann if he 
 sent his bill within three months.' 
 
 "The Doctor thought that that would be an 
 excellent idea in a farce, but that it was execrable 
 in real life, and he doubted my success. But, I 
 give you my word, Humann fitted Marcas out, and, 
 like the artist that he is, he dressed him as a 
 statesman should be dressed. 
 
 "Juste offered Marcas two hundred francs in 
 gold, lent by the Mont-de-Piete on two watches pur- 
 chased on credit. For my part, I had said nothing 
 of six shirts, of everything that was necessary in 
 the way of linen, which cost me nothing more than 
 the pleasure of begging them from a linen-draper's 
 forewoman with whom I had foregathered during 
 the carnival. Marcas accepted everything without 
 thanking us more than he ought. He simply 
 inquired how we had come into possession of such 
 wealth, and we made him laugh for the last 
 time. We watched Marcas as merchants who 
 have exhausted all their credit and all their 
 resources in fitting out a vessel might watch it as 
 it set sail."
 
 Z. MARCAS 43 
 
 At that point Charles paused; he seemed oppressed 
 by his memories. 
 
 "Well," we cried, "what happened?" 
 "I will tell you in two words, for this is not a 
 novel, but a history. We saw no more of Marcas. 
 The ministry lasted three months, it died after the 
 session. Marcas returned to us without a sou, 
 exhausted by hard work. He had sounded the 
 crater of power; he returned to the surface with the 
 beginning of a nervous fever upon him. The dis- 
 ease made rapid progress and we nursed him. At 
 the outset Juste brought the physician-in-chief of the 
 hospital that he had entered as an intern. I then 
 occupied our chamber all alone, and I was the most 
 attentive of nurses; but nursing and science were 
 of no avail. In January, 1838, Marcas himself felt 
 that he had only a few days to live. The statesman 
 whose mind he had been for six months did not 
 come to see him, did not even send to inquire for 
 him. Marcas expressed the utmost contempt for 
 the government; he seemed to us to entertain doubts 
 concerning the ultimate destiny of France, and 
 those doubts had caused his illness. He believed 
 that he had detected treachery at the heart of the 
 government; not tangible, palpable treachery, 
 manifested by deeds; but treachery due to a system, 
 to the subordination of national interests to selfish- 
 ness. His belief in the deterioration of the country 
 was sufficient to aggravate his malady. I was a 
 witness to the propositions made to him by one of 
 the leading exponents of the opposite system which
 
 44 Z- MARCAS 
 
 he had fought. His detestation of the men he had 
 tried to serve was so fierce that he would joyfully 
 have consented to join the coalition that was being 
 formed among the ambitious men who had one idea, 
 if no other that of shaking off the yoke of the 
 court. But Marcas answered the emissary in the 
 words of the H6tel de Ville: 'It is too late!' 
 
 "Marcas did not leave enough to pay for his 
 burial. Juste and I had much difficulty in sparing 
 him the disgrace of the paupers' van, and we two 
 alone followed the hearse containing the body of Z. 
 Marcas, which was thrown into the common grave 
 in the cemetery of Mont-Parnasse." 
 
 We all gazed sadly at one another as we listened 
 to this tale, the last of those Charles Rabourdin 
 told us on the eve of the day when he set sail on a 
 brig, at Havre, for the Malaysian Islands, for we 
 knew more than one Marcas, more than one victim 
 of political devotion .rewarded by treachery or 
 neglect. 
 
 Aux Jardies, May, 1840.
 
 THE OTHER SIDE 
 OF CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY 
 
 FIRST EPISODE 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 
 
 (45)
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 
 
 On a beautiful evening in the month of Sep- 
 tember, 1836, a man of about thirty years of age 
 stood leaning against the parapet of that quay from 
 which, looking upstream, one can see the Seine 
 from the Jardin des Plantes to Notre-Dame, and, 
 looking downstream, the whole perspective of the 
 river as far as the Louvre. There are not two such 
 points of view in the whole capital of ideas. It is as 
 if one were standing at the stern of that gigantic 
 vessel. There one muses upon the history of Paris 
 from the Romans to the Franks, from the Normans 
 to the Burgundians, the Middle Ages, the Valois, 
 Henri IV. and Louis XIV., Napoleon and Louis- 
 Philippe. Standing there, you see some remains or 
 some monuments that recall all of those dynasties 
 and monarchs to our minds. Saint-Genevieve from 
 its cupola keeps watch over the Latin quarter. 
 Behind you rises the magnificent apse of the 
 cathedral. The Hotel de Ville speaks to you of all 
 the revolutions of Paris and the H6tel-Dieu of all its 
 sufferings. When you have caught a glimpse of the 
 splendors of the Louvre, by taking two steps you 
 can see the remains of that squalid mass of buildings 
 (47)
 
 48 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 situated between Quai de la Tournelle and the 
 Hatel-Dieu, which the sheriffs of to-day are at this 
 moment busily occupied in demolishing. 
 
 In 1835 ^at wonderful picture contained one 
 other instructive detail: between the Parisian lean- 
 ing against the parapet and the cathedral, the 
 Terrain such was the ancient name of that desert 
 place was still strewn with the ruins of the arch- 
 bishopric. When from that point one gazes upon so 
 many inspiring objects, when the mind embraces at 
 a glance the past and the present of the city of 
 Paris, it seems as if religion had taken up its quarters 
 there in order to put forth its hands over the 
 afflictions of both banks, from Faubourg Saint- 
 Antoine to Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Let us hope 
 that so many sublimely harmonious elements will 
 be fitly complemented by the construction of an 
 episcopal palace in the Gothic style, which will take 
 the place of the characterless hovels between the 
 Terrain, Rue d'Arcole, the cathedral and Quai de la 
 Cite. 
 
 That point, the heart of ancient Paris, is the most 
 solitary, the most melancholy spot in the whole city. 
 The waters of the Seine plash noisily against the 
 piers, the cathedral casts its shadow there at sunset. 
 One can understand how a man afflicted with some 
 mental malady may be moved to serious thoughts 
 in such a place. 
 
 Attracted perhaps by a secret accord between the 
 thoughts that were in his mind at the moment and 
 those to which the sight of such widely differing
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 49 
 
 scenes gave birth, the idler remained with his hands 
 on the parapet, given over to a twofold contempla- 
 tion: Paris and himself! The shadows lengthened, 
 lights twinkled in the distance, and still he did not 
 move, absorbed as he was by the current of one of 
 those fits of musing pregnant with future events, 
 which the past renders solemn. 
 
 At that moment he heard two persons coming 
 toward him, whose voices he had noticed when they 
 were upon the stone bridge leading from the island 
 of La Cite to Quai de la Tournelle. The two 
 persons in question evidently believed themselves 
 to be alone, and were talking somewhat louder than 
 they would have done in frequented places or if they 
 had been aware of the presence of a stranger. As 
 heard from the bridge, the voices indicated a discus- 
 sion, which, to judge from some words that reached 
 the ears of the involuntary witness of the scene, 
 related to a loan of money. As they approached the 
 man leaning against the parapet, one of them, who 
 was dressed like a workingman, left the other, with 
 a gesture of despair. The other turned, recalled the 
 workingman and said to him: 
 
 "You haven't a sou to cross the bridge again. 
 Here," he added, giving him a piece of money; 
 "and remember, my friend, that it is God himself 
 who speaks to us when worthy thoughts come to 
 our minds!" 
 
 This last sentence made our dreamer start. The 
 man who spoke thus did not suspect that he was, to 
 use a vulgar expression, killing two birds with one 
 4
 
 50 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 stone, that he was addressing his remarks to two 
 unfortunates: a son of toil in despair and a mind 
 without a compass; a victim of what Panurge's 
 sheep* call progress, and a victim of what France 
 calls equality. The words, simple enough in them- 
 selves, acquired importance from the accent of the 
 man who uttered them and whose voice possessed a 
 sort of fascination. Do not calm, gentle voices 
 harmonize with the effects produced on us by gaz- 
 ing at ultramarine. 
 
 By his costume the Parisian recognized a priest, 
 and by the last rays of the twilight he saw a white, 
 imposing, but wasted face. The sight of a priest 
 coming out of the beautiful cathedral of St. Stephen 
 at Vienna, to carry extreme unction to a dying man, 
 decided the famous tragic author Werner to become 
 a Catholic. It was almost the same with the Parisian 
 when he saw the man who had unwittingly given 
 him consolation; he descried on the threatening 
 horizon of his future a long luminous streak in 
 which the azure blue of heaven shone resplendent, 
 and he followed that light as the shepherds in the 
 Gospel followed the voice that called to them: 
 "Christ is born!" The man of kindly speech 
 walked along the cathedral wall, and bent his 
 steps by chance, which, by the way, is sometimes 
 logical, toward the street from which our dreamer 
 
 * Les moutons de Panurge. Rabelais tells us that Panurge, to be revenged on 
 Dindenault, bought a sheep of him and then drove it overboard, whereupon 
 all Dindenault's other sheep jumped over after It and the drover was ruined: 
 hence the phrase Is used for imitators. It is commonly used in the locution, 
 tauter comme Us moutons de Panurge to jump like Panurge's sheep.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 51 
 
 came and to which he was returning, led thither by 
 the errors of his life. 
 
 The dreamer's name was Godefroid. As the 
 story progresses, the reader will understand the 
 reasons that lead us to use only the baptismal 
 names of the characters. Let us see why Gode- 
 froid, who lived in the Chaussee-d'Antin quarter, 
 happened to be in the neighborhood of Notre-Dame 
 at such an hour. 
 
 The son of a retail tradesman who had acquired 
 a moderate fortune by dint of economy, he became 
 the sole ambition of his father and mother, who 
 dreamed of seeing him a notary in Paris. With that 
 end in view he was placed, at the age of seven, in 
 the institution of Abbe Liautard, among the chil- 
 dren of many distinguished families, who, under the 
 reign of the Emperor, through attachment to the 
 religion, which was somewhat slighted in the public 
 secondary schools, had selected that establishment 
 for the education of their sons. Social inequalities 
 were not thought of among schoolmates; but in 1821, 
 when his studies were finished and he was given a 
 position in a notary's office, Godefroid was not slow 
 to appreciate the distance that separated him from 
 those with whom he had hitherto lived on familiar 
 terms. 
 
 Being compelled to follow the course of study 
 prescribed for his degree, he found himself an 
 indistinguishable part of a multitude of sons of the 
 bourgeoisie, who, without fortune or hereditary 
 distinctions, had to rely wholly upon their personal
 
 52 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 qualities or their persistent work. The hopes that 
 his father and mother, who had then retired from 
 business, based upon him, stimulated his self-esteem 
 without making him proud. His parents lived 
 simply, in the Dutch fashion, spending no more 
 than the fourth of their twelve thousand francs' 
 income; their savings, as well as half of their 
 capital, were intended for the purchase of an office 
 for their son. Being subjected to the laws of that 
 domestic economy, Godefroid found his present 
 position so at variance with his parents' dreams 
 and his own, that he was conscious of a feeling of 
 discouragement. In weak natures discouragement 
 becomes envy. Whereas some others, in whom 
 necessity, force of will, the habit of reflection took 
 the place of talent, marched straight and resolutely 
 onward in the path marked out for ambitious 
 bourgeois, Godefroid turned aside from it in disgust, 
 determined to shine, and turned his face toward all 
 the brilliantly illuminated spots, which burned his 
 eyes. He tried to succeed, but all his efforts ended 
 in establishing his powerlessness. When he detected 
 at last a lack of equilibrium between his desires 
 and his fortune, he conceived a bitter hatred of all 
 social supremacy, became a liberal and tried to 
 attain celebrity by means of a book; but he learned 
 at his own expense to look upon talent with the 
 same eye as upon nobility. Having tried the no- 
 tarial office, the bar and literature successively, with- 
 out success, he determined to be a magistrate. 
 At that moment his father died. His mother,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 53 
 
 who was content in her old age with two thousand 
 francs a year, turned over almost the whole of his 
 father's fortune to him. The possessor, at twenty- 
 five, of an income of ten thousand francs, he deemed 
 himself rich, and so he was in comparison with his 
 past. Up to that time his life had been composed 
 of acts in which his own will had no part, of 
 unsatisfied desires; and in order to go forward with 
 his century, to do something, to play a part, he 
 attempted to make his way into some sort of society 
 with the aid of his fortune. First of all he fell in 
 with journalism, which always opens its arms to 
 the first capital it sees. To be proprietor of a 
 newspaper is to become a personage: you speculate 
 in intelligence, you share its pleasures without 
 sharing its labors. Nothing is more tempting to 
 inferior minds than to rise to eminence thus upon 
 another's talent. Paris has seen two or three 
 parvenus of that sort, whose success is a disgrace 
 both to the age we live in and to those who have 
 lent them their shoulders to stand upon. 
 
 In that sphere, Godefroid was outdone by the 
 vulgar Machiavelianism of some and the prodigality 
 of others, by the wealth of ambitious capitalists or 
 by the wit of editors; then too he was drawn into 
 the various forms of dissipation to which literary or 
 political life and the methods of criticism in vogue in 
 the wings are likely to lead, and into the distrac- 
 tions that busily occupied minds find necessary. 
 He fell into bad company; but he learned that he 
 had an unimposing figure, that one of his shoulders
 
 54 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 was perceptibly higher than the other, and that the 
 deformity was not redeemed either by the bitterness 
 or kindliness of his wit. Bad taste is the salary 
 that artists draw upon when they tell the truth. 
 
 Short of stature, badly built, devoid of wit and of 
 sustained purpose, it seemed a hopeless case for a 
 young man at a time when the combination of the 
 loftiest mental qualities counts little for success in 
 any career, without good luck or the tenacity which 
 is equivalent to good luck. 
 
 The revolution of 1830 poured balm upon Gode- 
 froid's wounds; he had the courage of hope, which 
 is not inferior to the courage of despair; he obtained, 
 like so many obscure journalists, his own appoint- 
 ment to an administrative office where his liberal 
 ideas, being at variance with the exigencies of the 
 new powers, made of him a rebellious subject. 
 Being anointed with liberalism, he was unable, like 
 several men of superior parts, to make up his mind. 
 To obey ministers meant in his eyes to change his 
 opinions. Moreover the government seemed to him 
 to disregard the laws of its origin. Godefroid 
 declared himself on the side of movement when it 
 was a question of resistance, and he returned to 
 Paris almost poor, but faithful to the doctrines of 
 the opposition. 
 
 Alarmed by the excesses of the press, even more 
 alarmed by the plots of the republican party, he 
 sought in retirement the only life suited to a person 
 whose faculties were incomplete, who lacked force 
 to stand up amid the rough turmoil of political life,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 55 
 
 whose sufferings and struggling attracted no atten- 
 tion, who was exhausted by his failures, who had 
 no friends because friendship implies striking quali- 
 ties, either good or bad, and whose sensibilities 
 were rather dreamy than profound. Was it not the 
 only possible course for a young man whom pleasure 
 had already deceived more than once and who was 
 already aged by contact with a society as prone to 
 excite others as it was itself easily excited? 
 
 His mother, who died in the quiet village of 
 Auteuil, sent for her son before her death, for the 
 twofold purpose of having him at her side and of 
 putting him in the way to find the peaceful, simple 
 happiness which is adapted to satisfy such minds as 
 his. She had at last judged Godefroid rightly, 
 when she found him at twenty-eight years of age 
 with his fortune reduced to four thousand francs a 
 year, his aspirations crushed, his supposed capacity 
 vanished, his energy gone, his ambition humbled 
 and his hatred of everyone who made his way by 
 legitimate means aggravated by all his failures. 
 She tried to marry Godefroid to the only daughter 
 of a retired tradesman, a young woman who might 
 serve as nurse to her son's diseased mind; but the 
 father had the calculating spirit that does not 
 abandon an old tradesman in driving matrimonial 
 bargains, and after a year of neighborly attentions, 
 Godefroid was not accepted. In the first place, in 
 the eyes of those aspiring bourgeois, the suitor was 
 certain to be deeply tainted with immorality as a 
 result of his previous career; secondly, during that
 
 56 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 year he had encroached still farther upon his 
 capital, partly to dazzle the parents, partly to 
 please their daughter. This very pardonable vanity 
 on his part decided the refusal of the family, in 
 which dissipation was held in horror, as soon as they 
 learned that Godefroid had lost a hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs of capital in six years. 
 
 The blow penetrated the deeper into that heart, 
 already so sorely bruised, because the young 
 woman was not beautiful. But Godefroid, assisted 
 by the information he received from his mother, 
 had discovered that she possessed a thoughtful mind 
 and the very great advantage of a vigorous intellect; 
 he had become accustomed to her face, he had 
 studied her features, he loved her voice, her man- 
 ners, her expression. Having risked the last stake 
 of his life on that attachment, he experienced the 
 bitterest of disappointments. His mother died, and 
 he, whose necessities had followed the constant 
 progress of luxurious habits, found himself with no 
 more than five thousand francs a year, and with the 
 certainty that he should never be able to make up 
 any loss whatever, because he knew himself to be 
 incapable of the energy implied in the formidable 
 phrase: to make one's fortune! 
 
 Impatient, disappointed weakness does not con- 
 sent to efface itself all at once. So it was that, 
 during his mourning, Godefroid sought favorable 
 chances in Paris: he dined at tables-d'hote, he 
 formed rash intimacies with strangers, he courted 
 society and found naught but opportunities to spend
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 57 
 
 money. As he walked along the boulevards, his 
 mental suffering was so great that the sight of a 
 mother accompanied by a marriageable daughter 
 caused him a sensation as painful as that which he 
 experienced at the sight of a young man riding to the 
 Bois, of a parvenu in his elegant equipage, or a dec- 
 orated government clerk. His consciousness of his 
 own impotence told him that he could not aspire to 
 the most honorable of subordinate positions, much 
 less to the most agreeable of destinies; and he had 
 sufficient heart to be wounded by it, sufficient wit to 
 compose mental lamentations overflowing with gall 
 and bitterness. 
 
 Unable to contend against fate, having a con- 
 sciousness of superior faculties, but lacking the will 
 power to set them at work, feeling that he was 
 incomplete, that he had not the strength to under- 
 take anything great or the power to overcome the 
 tastes he had retained from his former life, his 
 education or his reckless habits, he was consumed 
 by three diseases, any one of which was enough to 
 make a young man devoid of religious faith disgusted 
 with life. So Godefroid's face had taken on the 
 expression which we meet with so often that it has 
 become the Parisian type: in it one could read 
 defeated or dead ambitions, mental suffering, hatred 
 lulled to sleep in the indolence of a life sufficiently 
 engrossed by the daily, external spectacle of Paris; 
 a lack of appetite that seeks stimulants, lamentation 
 without talent, the grimace of strength, the venom 
 of prior mistakes, which manifests itself in a tendency
 
 58 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 to smile at all raillery, to spit upon everyone who 
 succeeds, to speak slightingly of the most essential 
 powers, to rejoice at their embarrassment, and to 
 hold aloof from all social forms. That Parisian 
 disease is to the active, permanent conspiracy of 
 energetic men what the sapwood is to the sap of the 
 tree: it preserves it, supports it and conceals it. 
 
 Disgusted with himself, Godefroid determined one 
 morning, upon meeting one of his comrades, who had 
 been the tortoise of the fable as he had been the 
 hare, to give some meaning to his life. In the 
 course of one of those conversations which naturally 
 follow a meeting between two old college friends, 
 in the sunlight, on Boulevard des Italiens, he was 
 amazed to find that he, although endowed, in 
 appearance at least, with less talent and less 
 resources than himself, had succeeded by following 
 out in the morning the ideas he had conceived the 
 day before. The sick man thereupon determined to 
 copy that simple plan of action. 
 
 "Social life is like the soil," his schoolmate had 
 said to him, "it yields its fruits in proportion to our 
 efforts." 
 
 Godefroid had already run in debt. As a first 
 punishment, as a first task, he condemned himself 
 to live in retirement, paying his debts out of his 
 income. For a man accustomed to spend six 
 thousand francs when he had only five, it was no 
 small undertaking to keep his expenditures down to 
 two thousand. Every morning he read Les Petites 
 Affiches, hoping to find in its columns some place of
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 59 
 
 refuge where his expenses would be fixed, where he 
 could enjoy the solitude essential for a man who 
 wishes to reflect, to search his conscience, to 
 determine his proper calling. The manners that 
 obtained in the middle-class boarding houses of the 
 Latin quarter offended his sense of delicacy, the 
 private hospitals seemed to him unhealthy places, 
 and he was in the habit of relapsing into the fatal 
 irresolution characteristic of people who have no will, 
 when the following advertisement caught his eye: 
 
 " Small apartment at seventy francs per month, suitable for 
 a clergyman. A tenant of quiet habits is desired; good board 
 will be provided and the apartment furnished at moderate 
 expense if satisfactory arrangements can be made. 
 
 "Apply to Monsieur Millet, grocer, Rue Chanoinesse, near 
 Notre-Dame, who will furnish all necessary information." 
 
 Seduced by the kindliness concealed beneath that 
 wording and by the bourgeois perfume that exhaled 
 from it, Godefroid had called upon the grocer about 
 four o'clock, and had learned from him that Madame 
 de la Chanterie was dining at that moment and that 
 she received no visitors during her repast. The 
 lady could be seen in the evening after seven 
 o'clock or in the morning between ten o'clock and 
 noon. While he was speaking, Monsieur Millet ex- 
 amined Godefroid and caused him to undergo, as 
 the magistrates say, a first instalment of interro- 
 gation. "Was monsieur a bachelor? Madame 
 desired a tenant of regular habits; the door was 
 locked at eleven o'clock at the latest."
 
 60 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Monsieur seems to me to be of about the age to 
 suit Madame de la Chanterie," he said in conclusion. 
 
 "How old do you take me to be?" queried Gode- 
 froid. 
 
 "Something like forty," replied the grocer. 
 
 That artless reply cast Godefroid into the depths 
 of misanthropy and melancholy; he dined on Quai 
 de la Tournelle and returned to gaze at N6tre-Dame 
 just as the flames of the setting sun streamed 
 athwart the innumerable buttresses of the apse. 
 The quay was in shadow while the towers were 
 still aglow with light, and the contrast made a deep 
 impression upon Godefroid, whose mind was torn by 
 all the bitter thoughts that the grocer's ingenuous- 
 ness had revived. 
 
 Thus the young man was wavering between the 
 counsels of despair and the moving voice of the 
 religious harmonies with which the cathedral bell 
 filled the air, when amid the shadows and the 
 silence he heard the remark made by the priest. 
 Although, like most of the young men of his time, 
 he was far from religious, his sensibilities were 
 touched, and he returned to Rue Chanoinesse 
 whither he had already determined not to go. 
 
 The priest and Godefroid were equally surprised 
 when they walked together along Rue Massillon, 
 which lies opposite the small northern doorway of 
 the cathedral, and turned together into Rue Cha- 
 noinesse at about the point where that street ends 
 and Rue des Marmousets begins, near Rue de la 
 Colombe. When Godefroid halted under the arched
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 6l 
 
 gateway of the house where Madame de la Chanterie 
 lived, the priest turned toward him, scrutinizing 
 him by the light of a street lantern, which will 
 doubtless be one of the last to disappear in the 
 heart of old Paris. 
 
 "Have you come to see Madame de la Chanterie, 
 monsieur?" the priest inquired. 
 
 "Yes," replied Godefroid. "The words that I 
 have just heard you say to that mechanic were 
 sufficient proof to me that this house must be a 
 healthy place for the mind, if you live here." 
 
 "So you were a witness of my defeat?" said the 
 priest, as he raised the knocker; "for I did not 
 succeed." 
 
 "I should say that the mechanic was the one who 
 did not succeed, for he was asking you for money 
 with great earnestness." 
 
 "Alas!" replied the priest, "one of the greatest 
 disadvantages of revolutions in France is that each 
 one of them is a new premium offered to the 
 ambition of the lower classes. To better his condi- 
 tion, to make a fortune, which is looked upon to-day 
 as the only social guaranty, that same mechanic 
 has been drawn into monstrous schemes which, if 
 they should not succeed, are likely to require the 
 speculator to settle with human justice. That is 
 what an obliging spirit sometimes leads to." 
 
 The concierge opened a heavy gate and the priest 
 said to Godefroid: 
 
 "It may be that monsieur has come to look at the 
 small suite?"
 
 62 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 They thereupon crossed a courtyard of consider- 
 able size, at whose farther end arose the black mass 
 of a tall house flanked by a square tower higher 
 than the roof and of great antiquity. Everyone who 
 knows the history of Paris is aware that the ground 
 in front of and around the cathedral has been so 
 raised that there is no trace of the twelve steps 
 which formerly led to it. To-day the base of the 
 pillars of the porch is on a level with the street. 
 Thus the original ground floor of the house in 
 question must correspond with the present cellar. 
 A flight of two or three steps led to the door of the 
 tower, in which there was a venerable spiral stair- 
 case winding about an axis carved to represent a 
 vine. That style, reminiscent of the staircases 
 built by King Louis XII. at the Chateau of Blois, 
 dates back to the fourteenth century. Godefroid, 
 whose eye was struck by a thousand indications of 
 antiquity, could not refrain from saying to the priest, 
 with a smile: 
 
 "Yonder tower wasn't built yesterday!" 
 
 "It is said to have resisted the onslaught of the 
 Normans, and to have formed a part of one of the 
 first palaces of the kings of Paris; but, according to 
 the traditions, it seems more certain that it was the 
 residence of the famous Canon Fulbert, the uncle 
 of Heloise." 
 
 As he spoke, the priest opened the door of the 
 apartment which seemed from the street to be the 
 ground floor, but which, on the second courtyard
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 63 
 
 for there was a small inner courtyard as well as on 
 the first, was on the second floor. 
 
 In the first room a servant sat working by the 
 light of a small lamp; on her head was a linen cap 
 with no other ornament than goffered frills; she 
 stuck one of her needles in her hair and held her 
 knitting in her hand as she rose to open the door of 
 a lighted salon looking on the inner courtyard. The 
 woman's costume recalled that of the gray sisters. 
 
 ."I bring you a lodger, madame," said the priest, 
 ushering Godefroid into the salon, where he saw 
 three persons sitting in easy-chairs around Madame 
 de la Chanterie. 
 
 The three persons rose and the mistress of the 
 house did likewise; then, when the priest had moved 
 a chair forward for Godefroid, when the future 
 lodger had taken his seat, at a wave of the hand 
 from Madame de la Chanterie, accompanied by the 
 words: "Be seated, monsieur," the Parisian fancied 
 himself at an immense distance from Paris, in Lower 
 Bretagne or in the heart of Canada. 
 
 Silence may be said to have degrees. Perhaps 
 Godefroid, already impressed by the silence of Rues 
 Massillon and Chanoinesse, through which two 
 carriages do not pass in a month, and by the silence 
 of the courtyard and the tower, fancied himself at 
 the very heart of silence, so to speak, in that salon 
 surrounded by so many old streets, old courtyards 
 and old walls. 
 
 That part of the island known as the Cloister has 
 retained the characteristics common to all cloisters;
 
 64 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 it seems damp and cold, and the most profound 
 monastic silence reigns there in the busiest hours of 
 the day. It is to be noticed, furthermore, that all 
 that portion of the old Cite which is crowded 
 between the walls of Notre-Dame and the river is 
 to the north of the cathedral and in its shadow. 
 The easterly winds rush through with nothing to 
 break their force, and the fogs of the Seine are 
 detained there, as it were, by the black walls of the 
 old metropolitan church. And so no one will be 
 surprised at Godefroid's feeling when, in that 
 venerable structure, he entered the presence of four 
 persons as silent and solemn as their surroundings. 
 He did not look about, being intensely curious 
 concerning Madame de la Chanterie, whose name 
 had already aroused his interest. That lady was 
 evidently a personage of another age, not to say 
 of another world. She had a sweet face, the tones 
 of the complexion being at once soft and cold, an 
 aquiline nose, a double chin, brown eyes and a 
 noble brow: the whole framed by curls of silvery 
 hair. Her dress could be called by no other name 
 than the old-fashioned one of fourreau, it fitted so 
 closely, after the style of the eighteenth century. 
 The material, which was a light-brown silk with 
 numerous narrow green stripes, seemed to be of 
 the same period. The waist, which was of one 
 piece with the skirt, was concealed beneath a 
 paduasoy mantle with a border of black lace, 
 fastened over the breast with a miniature pin. Her 
 feet, encased in black velvet slippers, rested on a
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF CONSOLATION 
 
 "/ bring to you a lodger, madame," said the 
 priest, ushering Godefroid into the salon, where he 
 saw three persons sitting in easy-chairs around 
 Madame de la Chanterie. 
 
 The three persons rose
 
 X nyfr Lie Oucur
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 65 
 
 small cushion. Like her servant, Madame de la 
 Chanterie was knitting stockings, and had a needle 
 stuck in her curls under her lace cap. 
 
 "Have you seen Monsieur Millet?" she asked 
 Godefroid in the nasal voice peculiar to the dowagers 
 of Faubourg Saint-Germain, as if to give him an 
 opening, when she saw that he was somewhat 
 abashed. 
 
 "Yes, madame." 
 
 "I am afraid that the apartment will hardly suit 
 you," she continued, as she observed the fashion- 
 able cut and the newness of her would-be lodger's 
 attire. 
 
 Godefroid had patent leather boots, yellow gloves, 
 handsome shirt-studs, and a dainty watch-chain 
 passed through one of the buttonholes of his black 
 silk waistcoat with blue flowers. Madame de la 
 Chanterie took a small silver whistle from one of 
 her pockets and whistled. The servant entered. 
 
 "Manon, my girl, show monsieur the rooms. 
 Will you accompany monsieur, my dear vicar?" 
 she added, addressing the priest. "If the lodgings 
 should happen to suit you," she said, rising again 
 and turning to Godefroid, "we will discuss terms." 
 
 Godefroid bowed and left the room. He heard 
 the jingling of the keys which Manon took from a 
 drawer, and he saw her light the candle in a great 
 yellow copper candlestick. She went before, with- 
 out speaking a word. When Godefroid found him- 
 self on the stairs, ascending to the upper floors, he 
 doubted whether he was really alive, he seemed to 
 5
 
 66 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 be in a waking dream, he had before him the 
 fanciful world of the novels he had read in his hours 
 of leisure. Any Parisian who had, as he had, 
 recently left the modern quarters of the city, the 
 luxurious houses and appointments, the brilliantly 
 illuminated restaurants and theatres, the bustle and 
 animation of the heart of Paris, would have shared 
 his opinion. The candlestick held by the servant 
 dimly lighted the old winding staircases, where the 
 spiders had spun their webs, now covered with 
 dust. Manon wore a petticoat with broad pleats, 
 made of coarse sackcloth; her waist was cut square 
 behind as well as in front and her dress was all 
 made in one piece. When they reached the third 
 floor, which was supposed to be the second, Manon 
 stopped, turned the key in an old-fashioned lock 
 and opened a door roughly painted in imitation of 
 mahogany. 
 
 "This is it," she said, entering the room first. 
 
 Had a miser, a painter who died in want, a cynic 
 to whom the world was of no account, or a monk 
 who lived apart from the world, occupied those 
 apartments? One might well have asked himself 
 that quadruple question upon inhaling the odor of 
 destitution, upon observing the grease-spots on the 
 smoke-begrimed papers, the blackened ceilings, the 
 small window-panes incrusted with dirt, the stained 
 bricks of the floor, and the wainscoting coated with 
 a sort of sticky varnish. A cold, damp blast blew 
 down the fireplaces of carved and painted stone, 
 over which were mirrors set between piers of the
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 67 
 
 seventeenth century. The apartment was on two 
 sides of a square, like the house itself, surrounding 
 the inner courtyard, which Godefroid could not see 
 on account of the darkness. 
 
 "Who last lived here?" Godefroid asked the 
 priest. 
 
 "An ex-councilor of Parliament, one Monsieur de 
 Boisfrelon, a great-uncle of Madame. The old man, 
 who had been in his dotage ever since the Revolu- 
 tion, died in 1832 at the age of ninety-six, and 
 Madame could not make up her mind to put a 
 stranger in here at once; but she cannot afford to 
 be without the rent any longer." 
 
 "Oh! Madame will have the apartment put in 
 order and furnished to suit monsieur," interposed 
 Manon. 
 
 "That will depend on the arrangements you may 
 make with her," said the priest. "You will find a 
 fine parlor, a large bedroom and a cabinet, and the 
 two small rooms at right angles on the courtyard 
 will make an excellent place to work. My apart- 
 ment below and the one above are arranged in the 
 same way." 
 
 "Yes," said Manon, "Monsieur Alain's apartment 
 is just like yours, but he has a view of the tower." 
 
 "I think that I ought to see the rooms and the 
 house by daylight," said Godefroid timidly. 
 
 "Very likely," said Manon. 
 
 The priest and Godefroid went downstairs, 
 leaving the servant to lock the doors, after which 
 she overtook them and lighted them. When they
 
 68 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 returned to the salon, Godefroid, having overcome 
 his timidity, was able to examine the persons and 
 things there assembled. 
 
 The windows of the salon were hung with 
 curtains of old red silk with lambrequins, caught 
 back by silk cords. The red tiles were visible 
 around the edges of a rug of antique tapestry too 
 small to cover the floor. The wainscoting was 
 painted gray. The ceiling, separated into two 
 parts by a huge beam, one end of which was set in 
 the chimney, seemed like a tardy concession to 
 fashion. The easy-chairs, of wood painted white, 
 were upholstered in tapestry. A cheap clock, 
 flanked by two candlesticks of gilded copper, 
 adorned the mantelpiece. At Madame de la Chan- 
 terie's side was an old-fashioned claw-footed table, 
 upon which were her skeins of yarn in a wicker 
 basket. The scene was lighted by a hydrostatic 
 lamp. 
 
 The three men, who were sitting in their chairs as 
 rigid and motionless and silent as Buddhist priests, 
 had evidently, as well as Madame de la Chanterie, 
 ceased their conversation when they heard the 
 stranger returning. All three of them had cold, 
 discreet faces, in harmony with the salon, the house 
 and the quarter. Madame de la Chanterie admitted 
 the reasonableness of Godefroid's conclusions and 
 said that she would do nothing further until she 
 should learn the intentions of her prospective tenant 
 or, to speak more accurately, her boarder. If the 
 tenant could become reconciled to the customs of the
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 69 
 
 house, he might become her boarder, but those 
 customs were so different from those of Paris! Life 
 on Rue Chanoinesse was like life in the provinces: 
 one must be at home at ten o'clock, as a general 
 rule; they detested noise; neither women nor 
 children were wanted, so that the deep-rooted 
 customs of the house might not be disturbed in any 
 way. Only a man of the church could adjust him- 
 self to that order of things. Madame de la Chanterie 
 especially desired someone who lived modestly and 
 was not exacting; she could furnish the apartment 
 only with what was strictly necessary. Monsieur 
 Alain she indicated one of the gentlemen present 
 was satisfied, and she would treat her new lodger as 
 she treated the old ones. 
 
 "I do not imagine," said the priest, "that mon- 
 sieur is very much inclined to enter our convent." 
 
 "Indeed! why not?" said Monsieur Alain; "we 
 are very comfortable here, and we get along very 
 well together." 
 
 "Madame," said Godefroid rising, "I shall have 
 the honor to see you again to-morrow." 
 
 Although he was a young man, the four old men 
 and Madame de la Chanterie rose, and the vicar 
 escorted him as far as the stoop. The whistle blew. 
 At that signal the concierge appeared, armed with a 
 lantern, escorted Godefroid to the street, and .closed 
 and locked the huge yellow gate, as heavy as the 
 door of a prison and decorated with arabesques 
 of iron-work dating back to a period difficult to 
 determine.
 
 When Godefroid had taken his seat in a cab and 
 was being driven toward the warm, living, brilliantly 
 lighted regions of Paris, all that he had just seen 
 seemed to him like a dream, and the thoughts he had 
 had as he walked along Boulevard des Italiens, were 
 already a dim memory. 
 
 "Shall I find those people there to-morrow?" he 
 wondered.. 
 
 The next day, when he rose, surrounded by the 
 splendors of modern luxury and the appliances of 
 comfort as the English understand it, Godefroid 
 recalled all the details of his visit to the Cloister of 
 Notre-Dame, and realized the meaning of the things 
 he had seen. The three unknown men, whose 
 dress, whose demeanor and whose silence were still 
 vividly present to his mind, must be boarders, as well 
 as the priest. Madame de la Chanterie's solemn 
 manner seemed to him to be due to the secret 
 dignity with which she endured great misfortunes. 
 But, despite the explanations he offered himself, 
 Godefroid could not avoid the feeling that there was 
 something mysterious in those discreet faces. He 
 selected at a glance such of his furniture as could be 
 retained, such as was indispensable to him; but 
 when he transported it mentally to the shabby 
 lodgings on Rue Chanoinesse, he began to laugh at 
 the contrast it would offer to its surroundings, and
 
 72 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 he determined to sell everything, reduce his indebt- 
 edness with the proceeds and let Madame de la 
 Chanterie furnish the rooms for him. What he must 
 have was an entirely new life, and any objects 
 likely to remind him of his former position would be 
 unpleasant to look at. In his longing for the trans- 
 formation, for his was one of the characters that 
 go a long distance in a new direction at the first 
 stride, instead of feeling their way step by step as 
 others do, he was seized by an idea as he was 
 breakfasting: he determined to turn his fortune into 
 cash, pay his debts, and invest the balance of his 
 capital with the banking house with which his father 
 had done business. 
 
 That house was the house of Mongenod et Cie., 
 established in Paris in 1816 or 1817, whose reputa- 
 tion for honorable dealing had never been assailed 
 amid the commercial depravity with which certain 
 Paris houses were more or less tainted. Thus, 
 despite their enormous wealth, the houses of 
 Nucingen, Du Tillet, Keller Freres and Palma et 
 Cie. suffered a loss of reputation which, to be sure, 
 was not talked about, or, if you please, was talked 
 about only in whispers. Shocking methods had 
 produced such satisfactory results, political success 
 and allegiance to the dynasty covered a base 
 extraction so completely, that no one, in 1834, paid 
 any heed to the mud that surrounded the roots of 
 those majestic trees, the props of the State. Never- 
 theless, there was not a single one of those bankers 
 to whom a word in praise of the house of Mongenod
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 73 
 
 was not a deadly wound. The house of Mongenod, 
 following the example of the great English bankers, 
 made no outward show; profound silence reigned in 
 their counting-rooms; they were content to carry 
 on the banking business with a discretion, good 
 judgment and uprightness that enabled them to 
 extend their operations with security from one end 
 of the world to the other. 
 
 The present head of the firm, Frederic Mongenod, 
 is the Vicomte de Fontaine's brother-in-law. Thus 
 that numerous family is connected through Baron 
 de Fontaine with Monsieur Grossete'te, the receiver- 
 general, brother of the Grossete'tes of Grossete'te et 
 Cie. of Limoges; with the Vandenesses and with 
 Planat de Baudry, another receiver-general. That 
 relationship, after procuring the late Mongenod 
 Senior great advantages in the financial operations 
 of the Restoration, had procured for him the confi- 
 dence of the first families of the old nobility, whose 
 capital and vast savings were entrusted to his bank. 
 Far from aspiring to the peerage, like the Kellers, 
 the Nucingens and the Du Tillets, the Mongenods 
 held aloof from politics and knew no more of it than 
 it was essential for the bank to know. 
 
 The house of Mongenod had its quarters in a 
 superb mansion, between courtyard and garden, on 
 Rue de la Victoire, where Madame Mongenod and 
 her two sons, the three members of the firm, lived. 
 Madame la Vicomtesse de Fontaine had been bought 
 out by them at the time of the elder Mongenod's 
 death, in 1827. Frederic Mongenod, a handsome
 
 74 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 man of about thirty-five, cold and taciturn in 
 manner, reserved as a Genevan and neat as an 
 Englishman, had acquired under his father's eye all 
 the qualities essential to his difficult profession. He 
 had received a better education than the vast 
 majority of bankers, his studies having covered all 
 the subjects embraced in the polytechnic curriculum; 
 but, like many bankers, he had a predilection, a 
 fad outside of his business he was very fond of 
 mechanics and chemistry. His brother, who was 
 ten years younger than he, occupied much the same 
 position in his brother's office as that occupied by a 
 head clerk in the office of a notary or a solicitor; 
 Frederic was training him, as he had himself been 
 trained by his father, in all the branches of knowl- 
 edge essential for the true banker, who is to money 
 what the writer is to ideas: both of them should 
 know everything. 
 
 Upon giving his family name, Godefroid discovered 
 in what esteem his father was held, for he was 
 taken directly through the offices to Mongenod's 
 private room. As the doors to that room were of 
 glass, Godefroid, notwithstanding his attempts not 
 to listen, heard the conversation that was in progress 
 within. 
 
 "Madame, your account shows sixteen hundred 
 thousand francs to your credit and the same to your 
 debit," Mongenod the younger was saying; "I do 
 not know what my brother's intentions are, and 
 only he can say whether an advance of a hun- 
 dred thousand francs is possible. You have been
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 75 
 
 imprudent. Nobody ought to risk sixteen hundred 
 thousand francs in business." 
 
 "Too loud, Louis," said a woman's voice; "your 
 brother has told you always to speak in undertones. 
 There may be somebody in the small salon." 
 
 At that moment Frederic Mongenod opened the 
 door between his apartments and the private office; 
 he spied Godefroid and walked across the office, 
 bowing respectfully to the person with whom his 
 brother was talking. 
 
 "To whom have I the honor of speaking?" he said 
 to Godefroid, allowing him to enter the office first. 
 
 As soon as Godefroid gave his name, Frederic 
 offered him a seat, and while he was opening his 
 desk, Louis Mongenod and a lady, who was no other 
 than Madame de la Chanterie, rose and walked 
 toward Frederic. All three stood in a window-recess 
 and talked in undertones with Madame Mongenod, 
 to whom all business matters were submitted. For 
 thirty years past she had given her husband, and 
 her sons after him, proofs of a capacity for business, 
 which made her an active partner, for she was 
 authorized to sign the firm name. Godefroid saw 
 boxes labelled: Affaires de la Chanterie, and num- 
 bered from i to 7. When the conference was 
 brought to an end by the banker saying to his 
 brother: "Very well, go down to the cashier," 
 Madame de la Chanterie turned, saw Godefroid, 
 restrained a gesture of surprise, and questioned 
 Mongenod in an undertone; he replied briefly in the 
 same tone.
 
 76 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie wore small black woolen 
 shoes, gray silk stockings, and the same dress she 
 had worn the night before; her figure was enveloped 
 in the Venetian baute, a sort of cloak just coming 
 into fashion once more. On her head was a green 
 silk hood, of the style called ct la bonne femme, lined 
 with white silk. Her face was surrounded by 
 billows of lace. She was very erect and her bear- 
 ing, if it did not indicate high birth, indicated 
 familiarity with the ways of aristocratic life. Except 
 for her excessive affability, she might have seemed 
 haughty. At all events she was imposing. 
 
 "It was not so much chance as a dispensation of 
 Providence that brought us both here this morning, 
 monsieur," she said to Godefroid, "for I had almost 
 decided to refuse a lodger whose habits seemed to 
 me likely to be at variance with those of my house- 
 hold; but Monsieur Mongenod has given me certain 
 information concerning your family, which " 
 
 "Why, madame monsieur," said Godefroid, 
 addressing Madame de la Chanterie and the banker 
 at the same time, "I have no family now, and I 
 have come here to ask my father's former banker 
 for advice as to the, employment of my little fortune 
 in some new way." 
 
 Godefroid speedily and in a few words told his 
 story, and expressed his desire to change his mode 
 of life. 
 
 "In the old days," he said, "a man in my position 
 would have turned monk; but we have no religious 
 orders now."
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 77 
 
 "Go to madame's house, if madame is willing to 
 take you for a lodger," said Frederic Mongenod, 
 after exchanging a glance with Madame de la 
 Chanterie, "and don't sell your government stocks, 
 but let me have them. Give me the exact figure 
 of your indebtedness, I will arrange periods of 
 payment with your creditors, and you will have 
 about a hundred and fifty francs a month for your- 
 self. It will take two years to clear you. During 
 those two years, you will have, where you will be, 
 plenty of leisure to think of a career, especially 
 among the people with whom you are to live, whose 
 advice is sure to be good." 
 
 Louis Mongenod returned with a hundred notes of 
 a thousand francs, which he handed to Madame de 
 la Chanterie. Godefroid offered his future landlady 
 his hand and escorted her to her cab. 
 
 "We shall meet again soon, monsieur," she said 
 in a friendly tone. 
 
 "At what hour will you be at home, madame?" 
 said Godefroid. 
 
 "In two hours." 
 
 "I have time to sell my furniture," he said, as he 
 took leave of her. 
 
 During the short time that he had held Madame 
 de la Chanterie's arm in his and they had walked 
 along together, Godefroid had been unable to take 
 his eyes from the halo that Louis Mongenod's words: 
 "Your account foots up sixteen hundred thousand 
 francs," had placed about the head of that woman, 
 whose life was passed in the depths of the Cloister
 
 78 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 of N&tre-Dame. The thought: "She must be 
 rich!" changed his point of view entirely. 
 
 "How old can she be?" he asked himself. 
 
 And he caught a glimpse of a possible romance in 
 a sojourn on Rue Chanoinesse. 
 
 "She has a noble air! Does she do a banking 
 business?" he said to himself. 
 
 In our day, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a 
 thousand young men in Godefroid's position would 
 have thought of the possibility of marrying the 
 woman. 
 
 A dealer in furniture, who was something of an 
 upholsterer, but whose principal business was 
 renting furnished apartments, gave Godefroid about 
 three thousand francs for all that he wanted to sell, 
 and allowed him to retain it the few days required 
 for putting in order the unattractive apartment on 
 Rue Chanoinesse, whither the mentally diseased 
 young man promptly repaired. He sent for a painter 
 whose address Madame de la Chanterie gave him, 
 and who agreed, for a modest sum, to whiten the 
 ceilings, clean the woodwork, paint all the wain- 
 scoting to imitate Spa wood, and stain the floor, all 
 within the week. Godefroid took the measure of 
 the rooms and ordered the same carpet for them all, 
 a green carpet of the cheapest sort. He desired 
 uniformity and the utmost simplicity in his cell. 
 Madame de la Chanterie approved his idea. With 
 Manon's assistance she calculated the amount of 
 white calico necessary for curtains at the windows 
 and for bed-curtains for a simple iron bed; then she
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 79 
 
 agreed to purchase and make them at a price so 
 moderate that Godefroid was surprised. With the 
 new furniture that he brought, his apartment all 
 restored did not cost him more than six hundred 
 francs. 
 
 "So I shall be able to carry about a thousand to 
 Monsieur Mongenod," he said. 
 
 "We lead a Christian life here," said Madame de 
 la Chanterie, "and that, you know, accords but ill 
 with many superfluities, and I think that you still 
 retain too many." 
 
 As she gave her future lodger that advice, she 
 glanced at a diamond that sparkled in the ring 
 through which Godefroid's blue cravat was passed. 
 
 "I only mention it," she continued, "because I 
 see that you intend to break off the life of dissipation 
 which you bewailed to Monsieur Mongenod." 
 
 Godefroid gazed at Madame de la Chanterie, 
 enjoying the melody of her bell-like voice; he 
 scrutinized that absolutely white face, worthy of 
 one of the grave, cold Dutchwomen whom the 
 brushes of the Flemish school have reproduced so 
 well, and in whose faces wrinkles are impossible. 
 
 "White and plump!" he said to himself as he 
 took his leave; "but her hair is very white " 
 
 Like all weak natures, Godefroid had easily made 
 up his mind to begin a new life, thinking that every- 
 thing would run smoothly, and he was in great 
 haste to go to Rue Chanoinesse; nevertheless he 
 had an attack of prudence, of suspicion, if you 
 choose. Two days before he removed to his new
 
 80 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 quarters, he went to Monsieur Mongenod to obtain 
 some information as to the household he was about 
 to enter. During the few moments that he had 
 passed in his future lodgings to look over the changes 
 that had been made there, he had noticed several 
 persons going in and out, whose appearance and 
 manner, although not precisely mysterious, gave 
 him reason to think that some of the members of the 
 household were engaged in secret professions or 
 occupations. At that time there was much talk of 
 attempts on the part of the elder branch of the 
 Bourbons to regain the throne, and Godefroid be- 
 lieved that some conspiracy was on foot. When 
 he found himself in the banker's private office and 
 exposed to his penetrating glance as he asked the 
 question, he was ashamed of himself, and he saw a 
 sardonic smile upon Frederic Mongenod's lips. 
 
 "Madame la Baronne de la Chanterie," he replied, 
 "is one of the most obscure persons in Paris, but she 
 is one of the most honorable. Have you any reasons 
 for asking me for information concerning her?" 
 
 Godefroid took refuge in commonplaces: he was 
 going to live for a long while with strangers, and he 
 felt that he ought to know with whom he was form- 
 ing relations, etc. But the banker's smile became 
 more and more satirical, and Godefroid, whose em- 
 barrassment increased in the same degree, had the 
 shame of the performance without deriving any 
 benefit from it, for he dared not ask any further 
 questions concerning Madame de la Chanterie or 
 her lodgers.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 8 1 
 
 Two days later, on a Monday evening, after 
 dining for the last time at the Cafe Anglais and 
 sitting through the first two plays at the Varietes, 
 he arrived about ten o'clock at Rue Chanoinesse, 
 where he was shown to his apartment by Manon. 
 
 Solitude has charms comparable to those of 
 savage life, which no European ever quitted after he 
 had once had a taste of it. This may seem strange 
 at a time when everyone lives so wholly for the sake 
 of his fellows that everyone meddles with every- 
 one's business, and there soon will be no such thing 
 as private life, since the eyes of that modern Argus, 
 the newspaper, are progressing so rapidly in audacity 
 and greed; nevertheless the proposition is supported 
 by the authority of the first six centuries of Chris- 
 tianity, during which no hermit ever returned to 
 society. There are few mental wounds that soli- 
 tude does not cure. So it was that Godefroid, at the 
 outset, was soothed by the tranquillity and silence 
 of his new home, precisely as a tired traveler forgets 
 his fatigue in the bath. 
 
 On the day following his installation as one of 
 Madame de la Chanterie's family, he meditated 
 deeply perforce, finding himself separated from 
 everything, even from Paris, although he was still 
 in the shadow of the cathedral. There, having laid 
 aside all social vanities, he would have no other 
 witnesses of his acts than his own conscience and 
 Madame de la Chanterie's lodgers. He had left the 
 broad highway of society and entered upon an 
 unfamiliar path; but whither would that path lead 
 6
 
 82 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 him? to what occupation should he turn his atten- 
 tion ? 
 
 He had been absorbed in such reflections for 
 two hours, when Manon, the only servant in the 
 establishment, knocked at his door and informed 
 him that the second breakfast was served, and that 
 they were waiting for him. The clock was striking 
 twelve. The new boarder went down at once, 
 impelled by a longing to form an opinion of the five 
 persons with whom his life was to be passed thence- 
 forth. As he entered the salon, he saw all the 
 inmates of the house standing about, dressed in the 
 same clothes that they wore on the evening that he 
 came to see the rooms. 
 
 "Did you sleep well?" Madame de la Chanterie 
 asked him. 
 
 "I did not wake until ten," replied Godefroid, 
 bowing to the four boarders, all of whom solemnly 
 returned his salutation. 
 
 "We waited for you," said the old gentleman 
 named Alain, with a smile. 
 
 "Manon mentioned a second breakfast," said 
 Godefroid; "it seems that I have already broken a 
 rule, unwittingly. At what time do you rise?" 
 
 "We do not rise quite so early as the monks used 
 to do in the old days," replied Madame de la Chan- 
 terie graciously, "but we rise with the workingman 
 at six o'clock in winter, at half-past three in sum- 
 mer. Our hour for retiring also corresponds with 
 that of the sun. We are always asleep at nine 
 o'clock in winter and at eleven in summer. After
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 83 
 
 saying our prayers, we all take a little milk, which 
 comes from our farm, except Monsieur 1'Abbe de 
 Veze, who celebrates early mass, at six o'clock in 
 summer and seven in winter, at Notre-Dame a 
 service which these gentlemen, as well as your 
 humble servant, attend every day." 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie finished this explanation 
 at the table, at which her five guests had taken their 
 seats. 
 
 The dining-room, painted gray throughout, with 
 wainscoting of a pattern in the style of the age of 
 Louis XIV., adjoined the species of anteroom in which 
 Manon sat, and seemed to be parallel with Madame 
 de la Chanterie's bedroom, which doubtless com- 
 municated with the salon. The room had no other 
 ornament than an old-fashioned clock. The fur- 
 niture consisted of six chairs, whose backs, oval 
 in shape, were upholstered in tapestry evidently 
 executed by Madame de la Chanterie's own hand; 
 two mahogany sideboards and a mahogany table, 
 on which Manon laid no cloth for breakfast. That 
 repast, monastic in its frugality, consisted of a small 
 turbot with a white sauce, potatoes, a salad, and 
 four plates of fruit peaches, grapes, strawberries 
 and fresh almonds; in the way of hors-d'oeuvre, 
 there were honey in the comb, as it is served 
 in Switzerland, butter and radishes, cucum- 
 bers and sardines. It was served in the familiar 
 ware decorated with blue-bells and green leaves, 
 which was doubtless a great rarity under 
 Louis XVI., but which the constantly increasing
 
 84 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 demands of life at the present day have made very 
 common. 
 
 "We are fasting," said Monsieur Alain. "As we 
 go to mass every morning, you may imagine that 
 we comply blindly with all the requirements of the 
 Church, even the most severe." 
 
 "And you will begin by following our example," 
 said Madame de la Chanterie, with a stealthy glance 
 at Godefroid, whom she had placed by her side. 
 
 Of the four boarders, Godefroid already knew 
 the names of Abbe de Veze and Monsieur Alain; 
 but he had still to learn the names of the other two. 
 They said nothing, but ate their breakfast with the 
 attention that men of the cloth seem to bestow upon 
 the most trivial details of their repasts. 
 
 "Does this fine fruit also come from your farm, 
 madame?" inquired Godefroid. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," she replied. "We have our 
 little model farm just as the government has; it is 
 our country house, three leagues from here, on the 
 road to Italy, near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges." 
 
 "It is a piece of property that belongs to us all and 
 is to go to the last survivor," said Goodman Alain. 
 
 "Oh! it's no great affair," added Madame de la 
 Chanterie, who seemed to fear that Godefroid might 
 take these remarks as a bait. 
 
 "There are," said one of the two whom Gode- 
 froid did not know, "thirty acres of tillage land, six 
 acres of meadow and a vineyard of four acres, with 
 our house in the centre and the farmhouse a short 
 distance away."
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 85 
 
 "Why, such a piece of property must be worth 
 more than a hundred thousand francs, is it not?" 
 observed Godefroid. 
 
 "Oh! we get nothing from it but our provisions," 
 the same person replied. He was a tall, thin man 
 of serious mien. At first sight he seemed to have 
 served in the army; his white hair said plainly 
 enough that he had passed his sixtieth year, and his 
 face bore signs of bitter suffering endured with the 
 aid of religion. 
 
 The other unknown, whose appearance suggested 
 the teacher of rhetoric and the man of business at 
 the same time, was of medium height, stout and 
 active none the less: his face betrayed the jovial 
 character peculiar to the notaries and solicitors of 
 Paris. 
 
 The costumes of the four men presented the phe- 
 nomenon of perfect neatness due to the pride of the 
 person who took care of them. The same hand, 
 Manon's, could be detected in the smallest details. 
 Their coats were ten years old perhaps, and they 
 were kept in as perfect a state of preservation as a 
 cure's coats, by the occult power of the servant and 
 by constant use. The four men wore the livery, so 
 to speak, of a system of existence, they were all 
 possessed by the same thought, their glances said 
 the same words, their faces breathed gentle resigna- 
 tion, provoking tranquillity. 
 
 "Do I presume too far, madame," said Godefroid, 
 "in asking the names of these gentlemen? lam 
 ready to tell them the story of my life; may I not
 
 86 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 learn so much of theirs as the proprieties permit me 
 to know?" 
 
 "Monsieur's name is Monsieur Nicolas," answered 
 Madame de la Chanterie, indicating the tall, thin 
 man; "he is a colonel of gendarmerie, retired with 
 the rank of brigadier-general. Monsieur," she 
 added, indicating the short, stout man, "is an 
 ex-counselor of the royal court at Paris, who with- 
 drew from the magistracy in 1830; his name is 
 Monsieur Joseph. Although you have been here 
 only since yesterday, I will tell you that in the 
 world Monsieur Nicolas bore the name of Marquis 
 de Montauran and Monsieur Joseph that of Lecamus, 
 Baron de Tresnes; but to us, as to everybody else, 
 those names no longer exist; these gentlemen are 
 without heirs; they anticipate the oblivion that 
 awaits their families, and they are simply Messieurs 
 Nicolas and Joseph, as you will be Monsieur 
 Godefroid." 
 
 When he heard those names, one so famous in 
 the annals of royalism by reason of the catastrophe 
 which put an end to the uprising of the Chouans in 
 the early years of the Consulate, the other so 
 revered in the annals of the old Parliament of Paris, 
 Godefroid started involuntarily; but as he looked at 
 those two relics of the two greatest things in the 
 history of the crumbled monarchy the nobility and 
 the gown he could detect no turn of expression, 
 no change of feature that implied the existence 
 of a worldly thought. The two men no longer 
 remembered, or did not choose to remember,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 87 
 
 what they had been. It was Godefroid's first 
 lesson. 
 
 "Each of your names, messieurs, is a whole 
 history in itself," he said respectfully. 
 
 "The history of our time," replied Monsieur 
 Joseph, "of a mass of ruins." 
 
 "You are in good company, "said Monsieur Alain, 
 with a smile. 
 
 The last-named gentleman may be described in 
 two words: he was the petty bourgeois of Paris, an 
 honest bourgeois with the face of a calf, set off by 
 white hair, but made insipid by an eternal smile. 
 
 As for the priest, Abbe de Veze, his cloth told 
 the whole story. The priest who does his duty is 
 recognized at the first glance you exchange with 
 him. 
 
 The thing that most impressed Godefroid at the 
 beginning was the profound respect manifested by 
 the four boarders for Madame de la Chanterie: all 
 of them even the priest, notwithstanding the sacred 
 character that his functions bestowed upon him 
 bore themselves as if they were in a queen's 
 presence. Godefroid noticed the abstemiousness of 
 all his table-companions. Each of them ate for the 
 sole purpose of maintaining life. Madame de la 
 Chanterie took a single peach and half a bunch of 
 grapes, as did each of her former guests, but she 
 bade her new boarder not to imitate their modera- 
 tion, by offering him each plate in turn. 
 
 Godefroid's curiosity was aroused to the highest 
 pitch by this beginning. When they returned to
 
 88 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 the salon after breakfast, he was left alone, while 
 Madame de la Chanterie held a little private council 
 with the four friends in a window-recess. This 
 conference, which was carried on without any 
 animation, lasted nearly half an hour. They talked 
 in undertones, exchanging words which each one 
 seemed to have thought out beforehand. From 
 time to time Messieurs Alain and Joseph turned 
 over the leaves of a memorandum-book. 
 
 "Look over the faubourg," said Madame de la 
 Chanterie to Monsieur Nicolas, as he was leaving 
 the room. 
 
 Those were the first words Godefroid was able to 
 catch. 
 
 "And you, the Saint-Marceau quarter," she con- 
 tinued, addressing Monsieur Joseph. "Beat up the 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain, and try to find there what 
 we need," she added, looking at Abbe de Veze, who 
 at once took his leave. "And do you, my dear 
 Alain," she said, smiling upon the last of the four, 
 "go over the whole field. There, to-day's business 
 is attended to," she said, returning to Godefroid. 
 
 She sat down in her armchair, took from a small 
 work-table in front of her some of the linen that 
 had already been cut out, and commenced to sew 
 as briskly as if she were engaged on task-work. 
 
 Godefroid, lost in conjecture and believing that a 
 royalist conspiracy was on foot, took his landlady's 
 remark for an opening, and began to study her, 
 taking a seat beside her. He was struck by the 
 remarkable dexterity with which she worked, for
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 89 
 
 everything about her betrayed the great lady. She 
 worked as rapidly as a seamstress, for there are 
 certain indications by which anybody can distinguish 
 the work of the professional from that of an amateur. 
 
 "You work as if you knew the trade!" said 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "Alas!" she replied without raising her head, "I 
 used to work at it from necessity." 
 
 Two great tears started from the old lady's eyes 
 and fell from her cheeks upon the linen she held in 
 her hand. 
 
 "Pardon me, madame!" cried Godefroid. 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie glanced at her new lodger 
 and saw upon his face such an expression of regret 
 that she made him a friendly sign. Having wiped her 
 eyes, she at once recovered the characteristic tran- 
 quillity of her face, which was placid rather than cold. 
 
 "Monsieur Godefroid for you are already aware 
 that here you will be called by your baptismal name 
 and no other in this house you are amid the debris 
 of a great tempest. We were all bruised and 
 wounded in our hearts, in our family affections or in 
 our fortunes by that hurricane of forty years' dura- 
 tion, which has overthrown the royal power and the 
 religion, and scattered abroad the elements of which 
 the old France was made up. Remarks that seem 
 harmless wound us all, and that is the reason of the 
 silence that prevails here. We rarely speak of our- 
 selves; we have forgotten ourselves and have found 
 a way to substitute another life for our own. And 
 it was because it seemed to me, judging from what
 
 90 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 you said at Mongenod's, that there was some simi- 
 larity between your situation and ours, that I 
 persuaded my four friends to receive you among us; 
 indeed, we needed to find one monk more for our 
 convent. But what are you going to do? One 
 doesn't court solitude without some moral purpose." 
 
 "Hearing you speak thus, madame, I should be 
 very happy if you would become the arbiter of my 
 destiny." 
 
 "You speak like a man of the world," she replied, 
 "and you are trying to flatter me, a woman of 
 sixty! my dear child," she continued, "understand 
 that you are among people who firmly believe in 
 God, all of whom have felt His hand, and who have 
 given themselves to Him almost as completely as the 
 Trappists. Have you noticed the deep-rooted 
 feeling of security of the true priest when he has 
 given himself to the Lord, when he listens to the 
 voice and forces himself to be a docile instrument in 
 the fingers of Providence? He has no more vanity, 
 nor self-esteem, nor any of those things that inflict 
 continual wounds upon worldly people; his peace of 
 mind resembles that of the fatalist, his resignation 
 enables him to endure anything. The true priest, an 
 Abbe de Veze, is like a child with its mother, for the 
 Church, my dear monsieur, is a loving mother. But a 
 man may become a priest without a shaven crown, all 
 priests are not in holy orders. To devote one's self to 
 doing good is to imitate the good priest, it is to obey 
 God! I am not preaching to you, I am not seeking 
 to convert you, but to explain our life to you."
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 91 
 
 "Teach me, madame," said Godefroid, com- 
 pletely subjugated, "so that 1 may not infringe any 
 article of your code!" 
 
 "You would have too great a task; you will 
 learn by degrees. But above all things, never 
 mention your misfortunes here, for they are the 
 merest child's play compared with the terrible catas- 
 trophes with which God has stricken those with 
 whom your lot is now cast." 
 
 While she was speaking, Madame de la Chanterie 
 continued to ply her needle with despairing regu- 
 larity; but at that point she raised her head and 
 looked at Godefroid: she found him fascinated by 
 the penetrating sweetness of her voice, which, let it 
 be said, possessed a sort of apostolic unction. The 
 young patient gazed with admiration at the truly 
 extraordinary phenomenon presented by his com- 
 panion, whose face fairly glowed. A rosy flush had 
 overspread her waxen cheeks, her eyes sparkled, 
 the youthful enthusiasm of the soul gave life to her 
 slight wrinkles which seemed to add charm to her 
 expression, and everything about her solicited 
 affection. At that moment, Godefroid realized the 
 depth of the abyss that lay between that woman 
 and any commonplace sentiment; he saw that she 
 had attained an inaccessible mountain -top to which 
 religion had guided her, and he was still too worldly 
 not to be stung to the quick, not to long to go down 
 into the abyss, to climb the steep peak on the other 
 side where Madame de la Chanterie had taken her 
 stand, and to stand beside her there. Devoting his
 
 Q2 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 energies the while to a thorough study of the 
 woman, he told her of the disappointments of his 
 life and all that he had not been able to tell in 
 Mongenod's office, where he had confined himself 
 to a statement of his present position. 
 
 "Poor child!" 
 
 That maternal exclamation from Madame de la 
 Chanterie's lips, fell at intervals like soothing balm 
 upon the young man's heart. 
 
 "What can I substitute for so many unfulfilled 
 hopes, for so much unrequited affection?" he asked 
 at last, glancing at his landlady, who had become 
 pensive. 
 
 "I came here," he continued, "to reflect and to 
 decide what course to take. I have lost my mother, 
 take her place " 
 
 "Will you give me the obedience of a son?" 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes, if you give me the affection that wins 
 obedience." 
 
 "Very well, we will try." 
 
 Godefroid put out his hand to take one of his 
 landlady's, which she, divining his purpose, gave 
 him and he put it respectfully to his lips. Madame 
 de la Chanterie had a wonderfully beautiful hand, 
 without wrinkles, neither plump nor thin, so white 
 that a young woman might have envied it, and of a 
 shape to be copied by a sculptor. Godefroid gazed 
 admiringly at her hands, finding them in harmony 
 with the fascination of her voice and the celestial 
 limpidity of her glance.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 9$ 
 
 "Stay here!" she said, rising and returning to her 
 own room. 
 
 Godefroid experienced the keenest emotion, and 
 did not know to what order of ideas to attribute her 
 latest manoeuvre; his perplexity was not of long 
 duration, for she returned at once with a book in her 
 hand. 
 
 "Here, my child," she said, "are the prescriptions 
 of an eminent physician for the soul. When the 
 ordinary course of life fails to afford us the happiness 
 we expected from it, we must seek happiness in the 
 higher life, and this is the key to a new world. 
 Read a chapter in this book night and morning; but 
 bestow all your attention on it as you read, study 
 every word as if it were written in a foreign tongue. 
 A month hence you will be a different man. For 
 twenty years I have read a chapter every day, and 
 my three friends, Messieurs Nicolas, Joseph and 
 Alain, would no more think of omitting that duty 
 than of omitting to go to bed at night and rise in 
 the morning; follow their example for love of God, 
 for love of me," she said with divine serenity, with 
 impressive confidence. 
 
 Godefroid turned the book over and read on the 
 back, in gilt letters: Imitation of Jesus Christ. The 
 old lady's ingenuousness, her child-like innocence, 
 her certainty that she was doing the right thing, 
 abashed the ex-dandy. Madame de la Chanterie's 
 manner and her joy were precisely like those of a 
 woman offering a hundred thousand francs to a 
 merchant on the verge of bankruptcy.
 
 94 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "I have used it twenty -six years," she said. 
 "God grant that the book may carry the germs of con- 
 tagion! Go and buy me another, for this is the time 
 when certain people come who must not be seen." 
 
 Godefroid bowed to Madame de la Chanterie and 
 went up to his room, where he threw the book on 
 a table, crying: 
 
 "Dear, good woman!" 
 
 Like all books that are constantly read, the book 
 opened at a certain place. Godefroid sat down as if 
 to put his ideas in order, for he had been more 
 deeply moved that morning than during the most 
 agitated months of his whole life, and his curiosity 
 especially had never been so intense. Letting his 
 eyes wander at random, as one generally does 
 whose mind is deep in meditation, he glanced 
 mechanically at the two pages at which the book 
 was open and read this heading: 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Of the Royal Way of the Holy Cross 
 
 He took up the book and this passage of that 
 beautiful chapter caught his eye as if written in 
 letters of fire: 
 
 "He went before, bearing His cross, and died for 
 thee on the cross; that thou mightest also bear thy 
 cross and desire to die on the cross with Him. 
 
 "Go where thou wilt, seek whatsoever thou wilt, 
 thou shalt not find a higher way above, nor a safer 
 way below, than the way of the holy cross.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 95 
 
 "Dispose and order all things according to thy will 
 and judgment; yet thou shalt ever find, that of neces- 
 sity thou must surfer somewhat, either willingly or 
 against thy will, and so thou shalt ever find the cross. 
 
 "Sometimes thou shalt be forsaken of God, some- 
 times thou shalt be troubled by thy neighbors; and, 
 what is more, oftentimes thou shalt be wearisome 
 to thyself. 
 
 "Neither canst thou be delivered or eased by any 
 remedy or comfort; but so long as it pleaseth God, 
 thou must bear it. 
 
 "For God will have thee learn to suffer tribulation 
 without comfort; and that thou subject thyself wholly 
 to Him, and by tribulation become more humble." 
 
 "What a book!" said Godefroid to himself, turn- 
 ing over the leaves of that chapter. 
 
 And he fell upon these words: 
 
 "When thou shalt come to this estate, that tribu- 
 lation shall seem sweet, and thou shalt relish it for 
 Christ's sake; then think it to be well with thee, 
 for thou hast found a paradise upon earth." 
 
 Vexed by such simplicity, the true characteristic 
 of strength, and furious at being beaten by a book, 
 he closed it; but he found this counsel printed in 
 gilt letters on the green morocco cover: 
 
 SEEK ONLY WHAT is EVERLASTING 
 "Have they found it here?" he asked himself.
 
 He went out in search of a fine copy of the 
 Imitation of Jesus Christ, reflecting that Madame de 
 la Chanterie would want to read a chapter that 
 evening; he went down stairs and into the street. 
 He stood for some moments near the gate, uncertain 
 in which direction to go, wondering at what book- 
 shop he had better purchase the book, and, as he 
 stood there, he heard the noise of the massive porte- 
 cochere closing. 
 
 Two men came from the Hotel de la Chanterie if 
 the reader has carefully observed the characteristics 
 of that venerable building, he will have recognized 
 the distinguishing marks of the old hotels, properly 
 so-called. Manon, when she called Godefroid that 
 morning, asked him how he had passed his first 
 night at the Hotel de la Chanterie, evidently in 
 joke. Godefroid followed without any idea of spy- 
 ing upon the two men, who took him for an ordinary 
 passer-by and talked loud enough for him to over- 
 hear their conversation, the streets being deserted. 
 
 The two men returned through Rue Massillon, 
 skirted the walls of Notre-Dame and crossed the 
 Square. 
 
 "Well, you see, old man, it's easy enough to 
 catch their sous. We must agree with them, that's 
 all!" 
 
 "But we are in debt." 
 7 (97)
 
 98 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "To that woman." 
 
 "I would like right well to see that old carcass sue 
 me, I'd" 
 
 "You would you would pay her." 
 
 "You are right, for by paying her, I would get 
 more out of her later than I did to-day." 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better to follow their advice and 
 succeed in getting a good start?" 
 
 "Bah!" 
 
 "For she said they would find somebody to 
 advance the funds." 
 
 "You would have to quit the life too, you know " 
 
 "I am sick of the life, it isn't like being a man, to 
 be forever in one's cups." 
 
 "Very good; but didn't the abbe let Pere Marin 
 go the other day? He refused him everything." 
 
 "Pshaw! Pere Marin wanted to go into schemes 
 that only succeed with millionaires." 
 
 At that moment the two men, whose general 
 appearance denoted shop-foremen, suddenly retraced 
 their steps to cross Pont de l'H6tel-Dieu on their 
 way to the Place Maubert quarter; Godefroid 
 stepped aside, but when they saw how closely 
 he was following them, they exchanged a suspicious 
 glance and their faces expressed regret at having 
 spoken. 
 
 Godefroid was the more interested in their con- 
 versation, because it reminded him of the episode 
 of Abbe de Veze and the mechanic on the day of 
 his first visit to Rue Chanoinesse.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 99 
 
 "What can be going on at Madame de la Chan- 
 terie's?" he asked himself once more. 
 
 Meditating upon that question, he walked as far as 
 a bookshop on Rue Saint- Jacques and returned with 
 a sumptuously bound copy of the finest edition 
 published of the Imitation of Jesus Christ. As he 
 walked slowly homeward, in order to arrive exactly 
 at the dinner hour, he reviewed his sensations 
 during that morning, and he was conscious of a 
 remarkable mental rejuvenation. He was animated 
 by intense curiosity, but his curiosity paled never- 
 theless in the bright light of an inexplicable longing: 
 he felt drawn toward Madame de la Chanterie, he 
 had a fierce desire to attach himself to her, to 
 sacrifice himself for her, to please her, to earn words 
 of praise from her; in a word, he was a victim of 
 Platonic love, he felt that she possessed unspeakable 
 grandeur of mind, and he determined to probe her 
 mind to the bottom. He was impatient to learn the 
 secrets of the existence of those pure Catholics. 
 In short, the majesty of religion was so closely allied 
 to all that is most majestic in French womanhood, 
 in that little circle of faithful souls, that he resolved 
 to leave no stone unturned to procure his own 
 admission to it. These sentiments might have 
 sprung up very quickly even in the heart of a busy 
 Parisian; but Godefroid was, as we have seen, in 
 the position of a shipwrecked sailor who clings to 
 the slenderest plank, believing it to be solid, and 
 his mind was well ploughed, ready to receive any 
 sort of seed.
 
 100 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 He found the four friends in the salon and he 
 presented the book to Madame de la Chanterie, 
 saying: 
 
 "I did not wish you to be without it to-night." 
 
 "God grant," she replied, glancing at the superb 
 volume, "that this may be your last attack of 
 extravagance!" 
 
 As he noticed that the clothing of the four men 
 was reduced, even in the smallest details, to what 
 was absolutely essential for cleanliness and utility, 
 and found that the same system was rigorously 
 applied in every part of the house, Godefroid 
 realized the full scope of that rebuke, so gracefully 
 expressed. 
 
 "Madame," he said, "the people you bestowed 
 your favor on this morning are monsters; I unwit- 
 tingly overheard what they said when they left 
 the house, and it was marked by the blackest 
 ingratitude." 
 
 "They were the two locksmiths from Rue Mouffe- 
 tard," said Madame de la Chanterie to Monsieur 
 Nicolas, "that is your affair." 
 
 "The fish escapes more than once before he's 
 caught," observed Monsieur Alain with a laugh. 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie's absolute indifference 
 upon learning of the immediate ingratitude of men to 
 whom she had undoubtedly given money, surprised 
 Godefroid, who became pensive. 
 
 The dinner was enlivened by Monsieur Alain and 
 the former counselor; but the old soldier was grave and 
 cold and melancholy; his face bore the ineradicable
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE IOI 
 
 stamp of bitter chagrin, of a never-ending grief. 
 Madame de la Chanterie bestowed her attentions 
 upon all alike. Godefroid felt that he was being 
 narrowly watched by his fellow-boarders, whose 
 circumspection equaled their piety; his vanity led 
 him to imitate their reserve, and he measured his 
 words very carefully. 
 
 This first day was much more animated than those 
 which followed. Godefroid, finding himself excluded 
 from all the serious conferences, had no choice, 
 during the few hours in the morning and evening 
 when he was alone in his room, but to open the 
 Imitation of Jesus Christ, and he ended by studying 
 it as one studies a book, when one owns but the 
 one and is imprisoned. Under such circumstances, 
 it is the same with the book as with a woman when 
 one is alone with her: just as you must either detest 
 or adore the woman, so you become permeated with 
 the author's spirit or else you do not read ten lines. 
 
 Now, it is impossible not to be impressed by the 
 Imitation, which is to doctrine what action is to 
 thought. Catholicism vibrates through it, lives and 
 moves in it and engages in a hand-to-hand struggle 
 with human life. The book is a sure friend. It 
 speaks to all the passions, to all difficulties, even 
 worldly ones; it resolves all objections, it is more 
 eloquent than all the preachers, for its voice is yours, 
 it speaks in your heart, and you understand it 
 through your soul. It is, in a word, the Gospel 
 translated, adapted to all seasons, made appropriate 
 to all situations. It is astonishing that the Church
 
 102 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 never canonized Gerson, for the Holy Spirit evidently 
 guided his pen. 
 
 So far as Godefroid was concerned, the Hotel de 
 la Chanterie contained a woman as well as the book; 
 and he became more and more attached to that 
 woman every day; he discovered in her flowers 
 buried under the snow of many winters, he caught 
 glimpses of the delights of that sanctified friendship 
 which religion permits, which the angels smile upon 
 the same friendship which united those five per- 
 sons and against which nothing evil could prevail. 
 There is one sentiment more exalted than all others, 
 a love of soul for soul, which resembles the rare 
 flowers that bloom upon the highest mountain tops 
 and of which one or two specimens are revealed to 
 mankind from century to century; a love by which 
 lovers often are united and which explains many 
 faithful attachments that are inexplicable by ordinary 
 human laws. An attachment without misunder- 
 standings, without clouds, without vanity, without 
 conflict, without contrasts even, the moral natures 
 are so smoothly blended therein. Godefroid had a 
 premonition of the raptures of that boundless, 
 infinite sentiment, born of Catholic charity. At 
 times he could not believe in the reality of the 
 spectacle before his eyes, and he sought an explana- 
 tion of the sublime friendship of the five, being 
 amazed to find true Catholics, Christians of the 
 early days of the Church, in the Paris of 1835. 
 
 A week after he became a member of the house- 
 hold, Godefroid witnessed such a concourse of
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 103 
 
 people, he overheard fragments of conversation 
 concerning subjects of such gravity, that he realized 
 that the life of those five persons must be one of prodi- 
 gious activity. He noticed that no one of them slept 
 more than six hours at the most. All of them had 
 already done one day's work, so to speak, before 
 the second breakfast. Strangers brought and carried 
 away sums of money, sometimes of considerable 
 amount. The clerk from Mongenod's counting-room 
 was a frequent visitor, and he always came early in 
 the morning, so that his duties would not be 
 neglected on account of those visits, which were a 
 departure from the regular customs of the banking- 
 house. 
 
 One evening, Monsieur Mongenod himself came 
 and Godefroid noticed in his manner toward Mon- 
 sieur Alain a suggestion of filial familiarity mingled 
 with the respect he manifested for him as well as 
 for the other three of Madame de la Chanterie's 
 lodgers. 
 
 That evening the banker asked Godefroid only the 
 most commonplace questions: if he were comfortable 
 there, if he intended to remain, etc., while urging 
 him to persevere in his resolution. 
 
 "I lack only one thing to be happy," said Gode- 
 froid. 
 
 "What is that?" the banker asked. 
 
 "An occupation." 
 
 "An occupation!" cried Abbe de Veze. "So you 
 have changed your mind, for you came to our 
 cloister in search of rest."
 
 104 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Rest, without the prayer that gave life to the 
 monasteries, without the meditation that peopled 
 the desert places, becomes a disease," observed 
 Monsieur Joseph sententiously. 
 
 "Learn book-keeping," said Monsieur Mongenod 
 smiling, "in that way you can become very useful 
 to my friends in a few months." 
 
 "Oh! with the greatest pleasure," cried Gode- 
 froid. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and Madame de la 
 Chanterie called upon her new lodger to give her 
 his arm to go to high mass. 
 
 "It is the only violence I propose to do you," she 
 said. "Many times during this last week I have 
 longed to speak to you about your salvation; but I 
 do not think that the time has come. Your time 
 would be fully occupied if you shared our beliefs, 
 for then you could share our work." 
 
 At mass Godefroid noticed the fervent devotion of 
 Messieurs Nicolas, Joseph and Alain; but, as he had 
 had an opportunity during the few days he had 
 known them to form an accurate idea of the superior 
 intellect, the perspicacity, the extended knowledge 
 and the great mental powers of those gentlemen, he 
 thought that, if they humbled themselves so, the 
 Catholic religion must have secrets which had 
 escaped him. 
 
 "After all," he said to himself, "it is the religion 
 of the Bossuets, the Pascals, the Racines, Saint- 
 Louis, Louis XIV., the Raphaels, the Michael-Angelos, 
 the Ximenes, the Bayards, the Du Guesclins, and
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 105 
 
 I, poor insignificant creature that I am, could not 
 venture to compare myself with those great minds, 
 those statesmen, those poets, those illustrious 
 captains." 
 
 If no valuable information were to be derived 
 from these trivial details, it would be imprudent to 
 dwell upon them now, but they are essential to the 
 interest of this narrative in which the public of 
 to-day will find it difficult to believe, and which 
 begins with an almost absurd incident: the empire 
 acquired by a woman of sixty over a young man 
 who is thoroughly disillusioned. 
 
 "You did not pray," said Madame de la Chanterie 
 to Godefroid at the door of N6tre-Dame; "not for 
 anyone, not even for the repose of your mother's 
 soul!" 
 
 Godefroid blushed and made no reply. 
 
 "Do me the favor," said Madame de la Chanterie, 
 "to go up to your room and not come down for an 
 hour. If you love me," she added, "you will 
 reflect upon the first chapter in the third book of 
 the Imitation, the chapter entitled Of Inward Con- 
 solation." 
 
 Godefroid bowed coldly and went upstairs. 
 
 "The devil take them!" he exclaimed, in real 
 indignation. "What do they want of me here? 
 what sort of business is going on? Bah! all women, 
 even the most pious, use the same wiles; and even if 
 Madame," he said, calling his landlady by the name 
 her lodgers gave her, "has no grudge against me, it 
 is clear that some scheme is brewing against me."
 
 106 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Possessed by that thought, he tried to look from 
 his window into the salon, but the arrangement of 
 the house made it impossible. He went down one 
 floor, then hurried back to his room; for it occurred 
 to him that, in accordance with the rigid principles 
 of the other inmates of the house, an act of espio- 
 nage would result in his being turned out at once. 
 To lose the esteem of those five persons seemed to 
 him quite as serious a matter as to disgrace himself 
 publicly. He waited about three-quarters of an 
 hour and determined to surprise Madame de la 
 Chanterie by shortening the time she had mentioned. 
 It occurred to him to justify himself by a falsehood, 
 by saying that his watch was out of order, and he 
 set it forward twenty minutes. Then he went down 
 without the slightest noise. He reached the door of 
 the salon and opened it abruptly. 
 
 He saw a man of some note, still young, a poet 
 whom he had often met in society, Victor de 
 Vernisset, kneeling at Madame de la Chanterie's 
 feet and kissing the hem of her dress. If the sky 
 had fallen to pieces, as if it were made of glass, as 
 the ancients believed, Godefroid would have been 
 less surprised than by that spectacle. He conceived 
 the most horrible ideas, and a reaction even more 
 horrible ensued when, as he was about to give 
 utterance to the first satirical remark that came to 
 his lips, he saw Monsieur Alain in a corner counting 
 thousand-franc notes. 
 
 In an instant Vernisset was on his feet and the 
 worthy Alain stood as if transfixed. Meanwhile
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 107 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie darted at Godefroid a 
 glance that turned him to stone, for her new guest's 
 twofold change of expression had not escaped her. 
 
 "Monsieur is one of us," she said to the young 
 poet, pointing to Godefroid. 
 
 "You are very lucky, my dear fellow," said 
 Vernisset, "you are saved! But, madame," he 
 added, turning to Madame de la Chanterie, "even 
 if all Paris had seen me I should have been over- 
 joyed, for I can never pay my debt to you! I am 
 yours forever! I belong to you absolutely. Give 
 me whatever commands you choose, I will obey! 
 My gratitude will be without bounds. I owe you my 
 life, it is yours." 
 
 "Well, well, young man," said Goodman Alain, 
 "be prudent hereafter; but work, and above all 
 things, do not attack religion in your works. In a 
 word, remember your debt!" 
 
 As he spoke, he handed him an envelope stuffed 
 with the banknotes he had been counting. Victor 
 de Vernisset's eyes were wet with tears; he respect- 
 fully kissed Madame de la Chanterie's hand and 
 took his leave, after exchanging a handshake with 
 Monsieur Alain and Godefroid. 
 
 "You have disobeyed Madame," said the good- 
 man solemnly, with a sad expression on his face 
 that Godefroid had never seen there before; "that 
 is a capital offense; another of the same sort and we 
 part. That will be hard for you, after we had 
 judged you worthy of our confidence." 
 
 "My dear Alain," said Madame de la Chanterie,
 
 108 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "pray oblige me by saying no more about this 
 piece of folly. We must not ask too much of a new 
 arrival, who has had no great misfortunes, who has 
 no religion, whose only vocation is extreme curiosity, 
 and who does not as yet believe in us." 
 
 "Forgive me, madame," rejoined Godefroid; "I 
 propose from this moment to be worthy of you, I 
 submit to whatever tests you may deem necessary 
 before admitting me to the secret of your occupa- 
 tions, and if Monsieur 1'Abbe de Veze will undertake 
 to enlighten me, I will place my mind and my 
 reason in his keeping." 
 
 These words made Madame de la Chanterie so 
 happy that a slight flush rose to her cheeks; she 
 grasped Godefroid's hand, pressed it warmly and 
 said with singular emotion: 
 
 "It is well!" 
 
 That evening after dinner one of the vicars- 
 general of the diocese of Paris called, as did two 
 canons, two ex-mayors of Paris and a lady promi- 
 nent in one of the charitable associations. There 
 was no card-playing; the general conversation was 
 gay without being trivial. 
 
 A visitor who caused Godefroid much surprise 
 was the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne, one of the 
 queens of the aristocracy, whose salon was inacces- 
 sible to bourgeois and parvenus. The presence of 
 that great lady in Madame de la Chanterie's salon 
 was extraordinary enough in itself, but the way in 
 which the two women met and treated each other 
 was something inexplicable to Godefroid, for it
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE IOQ 
 
 spoke of an intimate acquaintance and constant 
 intercourse which added immensely to Madame de 
 la Chanterie's prestige. Madame de Cinq-Cygne 
 was affable and gracious to her friend's four friends 
 and showed marked respect for Monsieur Nicolas. 
 It will be seen that social vanity still influenced 
 Godefroid, who, although hitherto undecided, deter- 
 mined to comply, with or without conviction, with 
 everything that Madame de la Chanterie or her 
 friends required of him, in order to induce them to 
 admit him to membership in their order, or to obtain 
 a knowledge of their secrets, promising himself that 
 he would make up his mind as to his own course 
 then, and not until then. 
 
 The next day he went to the book-keeper to 
 whom Madame de la Chanterie recommended him, 
 agreed with him as to the hours when they should 
 work together, and in that way arranged for the 
 employment of all his time, for Abbe de Veze 
 catechized him in the morning, he passed two hours 
 every day with the book-keeper, and worked 
 between breakfast and dinner at the imaginary 
 accounts which his master gave him to keep. 
 
 Several days passed thus, during which Gode- 
 froid learned to feel the charm of a life in which 
 every hour has its own duty. The recurrence of 
 known tasks at stated hours, and perfect regularity 
 explain many contented lives and prove how deeply 
 the founders of the religious orders had meditated 
 upon human nature. Godefroid, who had made up 
 his mind to listen attentively to Abbe de Veze,
 
 110 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 already had some apprehension concerning the 
 future life, and was beginning to feel that he was 
 ignorant of the seriousness of religious questions. 
 Lastly, Madame de la Chanterie, with whom he 
 stayed about an hour after the second breakfast, 
 allowed him to discover, from day to day, fresh 
 treasures in her; he had never imagined goodness 
 so perfect or of such vast scope. A woman of 
 Madame de la Chanterie's apparent age no longer 
 has the petty foibles of the young woman; she is a 
 friend who offers you all the delicate feminine 
 attentions, who displays the graces, the charms 
 which nature inspires in woman for man's benefit, 
 and who no longer sells them; she is either detes- 
 table or perfect, for all her pretensions either exist 
 deeper than 'the skin or are dead, and Madame de 
 la Chanterie was perfect. She seemed never to 
 have been young, her glance never spoke of the 
 past. Far from allaying Godefroid's curiosity, a 
 more and more intimate acquaintance with her 
 sublime character, and the discoveries of each 
 succeeding day redoubled his desire to learn the 
 story of the early life of that woman, who seemed 
 to him a saint. Had she ever loved? had she been 
 married? had she been a mother? Nothing about 
 her indicated the old maid, she displayed the 
 graceful breeding of a woman of high birth, and 
 her robust health, the extraordinary phenomenon of 
 her conversation led one to feel that she lived a sort 
 of divine existence and knew nothing of ordinary 
 life. All the associates, except the jovial Alain,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE III 
 
 had suffered; but even Monsieur Nicolas seemed to 
 award the palm of martyrdom to Madame de la 
 Chanterie, and yet the memory of her misfortunes 
 was so held in check by the resignation of a devout 
 Catholic, by her secret occupations, that she seemed 
 to have been happy always. 
 
 "You are," Godefroid said to her one day, "your 
 friends' life, you are the bond that unites them; 
 you are, so to speak, the housekeeper of a great 
 work; and as we are all mortal, I ask myself what 
 would become of your partnership without you." 
 
 "That is what alarms them; but Providence, to 
 whom we owe our book-keeper," she said with a 
 smile, "will provide. Moreover, I shall be on the 
 lookout" 
 
 "Will your book-keeper soon be in the service of 
 your business house?" laughed Godefroid. 
 
 "That depends on him," she replied with a smile. 
 "Let him become truly religious, godly, let him lay 
 aside every trace of selfishness, let him give no 
 further thought to the wealth of our house, let him 
 think about rising above petty social considerations 
 by using the two wings God has given him " 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 "Simplicity and purity," she replied. "Your 
 ignorance is sufficient evidence that you neglect the 
 reading of our book," she added, laughing at the 
 innocent subterfuge to which she had had recourse 
 to ascertain if Godefroid were reading the Imitation 
 of Jesus Christ. "At least, saturate yourself with 
 the spirit of St. Paul's epistle concerning charity.
 
 112 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 You will not be ours," she said with a sublime 
 expression, "but we shall be yours, and it will be 
 vouchsafed to you to count the vastest wealth that 
 ever sovereign possessed; you will enjoy it as we 
 enjoy it; and let me tell you, if you remember the 
 Thousand and One Nights, the treasures of Aladdin 
 are as nothing compared to what we possess. And 
 so for a year past we have not known what to do, 
 we have not been equal to the demands upon us: 
 we felt the need of a book-keeper." 
 
 As she spoke, she studied Godefroid's face; he 
 did not know what to think of that strange confi- 
 dence, but as the scene between Madame de la 
 Chanterie and Madame Mongenod often recurred to 
 his mind, he wavered between doubt and faith. 
 
 "Ah! you will be very fortunate!" she said.
 
 Godefroid was so consumed by curiosity, that he 
 determined on the spot to force the four friends to 
 break their silence by questioning them concerning 
 themselves. Now, of all Madame de la Chanterie's 
 guests, the one toward whom Godefroid felt most 
 strongly attracted, and who seemed likely to appeal 
 most strongly to people of every class, was the 
 kindly, cheerful, simple-hearted Monsieur Alain. 
 By what road had Providence guided that artless 
 creature to that monastery without bolts and bars, 
 in the heart of Paris, whose inmates, although 
 absolutely free, submitted to the guidance of regu- 
 lations faithfully observed, as if they were subject 
 to the strictest of superiors? What drama, what 
 circumstance had led him to turn aside from his road 
 through the world, to follow that path so painful to 
 tread through the miseries of the capital? 
 
 One evening Godefroid determined to call upon 
 his neighbor, with the purpose of gratifying a 
 curiosity more keenly aroused by the apparent 
 impossibility of any serious catastrophe in that life, 
 than it would have been by the anticipation of 
 listening to some terrifying episode in the career of 
 a corsair. At the words "Come in!" spoken in 
 reply to his gentle tap on the door, Godefroid 
 turned the knob and found Monsieur Alain sitting 
 by his fire reading a chapter of the Imitation of 
 8 (us)
 
 114 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Jesus Christ, before retiring, by the light of two 
 candles, each provided with one of the movable 
 green eye-shades that whist-players use. 
 
 The good man was dressed in drawers with feet 
 and a dressing-gown of gray flannel, and his feet 
 were supported on a level with the fire, by a cushion, 
 which, as well as his slippers, Madame de la Chan- 
 terie had worked for him in small-stitch embroidery. 
 The old man's fine head, without other covering 
 than a crown of white hair almost like that of an 
 old monk, stood out in bold relief against the brown 
 background of the material with which his capacious 
 easy -chair was covered. 
 
 Monsieur Alain gently placed his dog's-eared book 
 on the little table with twisted legs, and with the 
 other hand waved the young man to a second 
 easy-chair, removing the eye-glasses from the end 
 of his nose. 
 
 "Are you ill, that you have left your room at this 
 time of night?" he asked Godefroid. 
 
 "My dear Monsieur Alain," Godefroid replied 
 frankly, "I am tormented by a curiosity which a 
 single word from you will prove to be very innocent 
 or very presumptuous; that statement is enough 
 to show you the spirit in which I shall ask my 
 question." 
 
 "Oho! what is your question?" he exclaimed, 
 looking at the young man with an almost sly 
 expression. 
 
 "What were the circumstances that led to your 
 living the life you are living here? For one must
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 11$ 
 
 be disgusted with the world, must have been deeply 
 wounded or have wounded others, to embrace the 
 doctrine of such utter self-abnegation." 
 
 "Why so, my child?" replied the old man, 
 allowing one of those smiles which made his mouth 
 one of the most affectionate that ever painter's 
 genius dreamed of, to wander over his full red lips; 
 "may one not be moved to profound pity by the 
 spectacle of the misery that exists within the walls 
 of Paris? Did Saint Vincent de Paul need the spur 
 of remorse or wounded vanity to induce him to 
 devote his life to deserted children?" 
 
 "That question closes my mouth the more surely, 
 because, if ever a mortal resembled that Christian 
 hero, you are the man," replied Godefroid. 
 
 Despite the roughness which advancing years had 
 given to the skin of his almost yellow, wrinkled 
 face, the old man blushed profusely; for he seemed 
 to have invited the compliment, of which his well- 
 known modesty made it impossible for him to have 
 thought. Godefroid was well aware that none of 
 Madame de la Chanterie's guests had the slightest 
 taste for that sort of incense. Nevertheless, honest 
 Alain in his excessive simplicity was more em- 
 barrassed by his scruples on the subject than a 
 young girl would have been for having conceived 
 some unworthy thought. 
 
 "Although I am still a long way behind him, 
 morally speaking," rejoined Monsieur Alain, "I am 
 very sure that I resemble him physically." 
 
 Godefroid essayed to speak, but he was restrained
 
 Il6 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 by a gesture from the old man, whose nose really 
 had the tuberculous appearance of the saint's nose, 
 and whose face, which looked like an old vine- 
 dresser's, was a perfect duplicate of the coarse, 
 vulgar physiognomy of the founder of the Foundling 
 Hospital. 
 
 "So far as I am concerned, you are right," he 
 continued; "my calling for the work we are doing 
 was determined by a paroxysm of repentance due 
 to an adventure " 
 
 "An adventure, you!" exclaimed Godefroid 
 gently, forgetting the answer he had at first intended 
 to make the old man. 
 
 "Oh! bless my soul, what I am going to tell you 
 will seem a trifle, mere folly to you, I doubt not; 
 but before the tribunal of conscience it was some- 
 thing more than that. If you persist in your desire 
 to take part in our work, after listening to me, you 
 will understand that the sentiments exist in propor- 
 tion to the strength of mind, and that a thing that 
 does not disturb a strong mind may very well tor- 
 ment the conscience of a weak-minded Christian." 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the curiosity of 
 the neophyte after this species of preface. What 
 crime could that excellent man, whom Madame de la 
 Chanterie called her Paschal Lamb, have committed? 
 It was as interesting as a book entitled the Crimes 
 of a Sheep. Sheep may be ferocious creatures in 
 their dealings with the grass and flowers. If we are 
 to believe one of the mildest republicans of that 
 epoch, the kindest of mortals would be cruel to
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 117 
 
 something. But Goodman Alain! who, like Sterne's 
 Uncle Toby, would not crush a fly after it had stung 
 him twenty times! that pure soul to be tortured by 
 remorse! 
 
 This reflection represents the pause the old man 
 made after the words "Listen to me!" meanwhile 
 pushing his cushion toward Godefroid's feet so that 
 he might share it with him. 
 
 "I was a little over thirty years old," he began; 
 "it was in '98, as nearly as I remember, a time 
 when young men were likely to have had the 
 experience of men of sixty. One morning, a little 
 before my breakfast hour, nine o'clock, my old 
 housekeeper announced one of the friends whom I 
 had retained throughout the tempests of the Revolu- 
 tion. So my first words were an invitation to 
 breakfast. My friend, a young man of twenty -eight, 
 named Mongenod, accepted the invitation, but in an 
 embarrassed way; I had not seen him since 1793 " 
 
 "Mongenod!" cried Godefroid, "the" 
 
 "If you want to know the end before the begin- 
 ning," the old man interposed with a smile, "how 
 am I to tell you my story?" 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture which promised absolute 
 silence. 
 
 "When Mongenod sat down," continued Alain, 
 "I noticed that his shoes were sadly worn. His 
 spotted stockings had been washed so often that I 
 had difficulty in discovering that they were made of 
 silk. His trousers, of apricot-colored cashmere, 
 were worn threadbare by long use, which was also
 
 Il8 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 attested by a difference of shade in risky places, 
 and his knee-buckles seemed to me to be of common 
 iron instead of steel; the buckles on his shoes 
 were of the same metal. His flowered white waist- 
 coat, yellowed by wear, like his shirt, whose frills 
 were sadly rumpled, betrayed extreme but decent 
 destitution. Last of all, the condition of his houppe- 
 lande such was the name by which we used to call 
 a single-caped frockcoat, cut like a Crispin cloak 
 confirmed my conviction that my friend had fallen 
 upon evil days. The houppelande, which was of 
 nut-brown cloth, exceedingly threadbare but care- 
 fully brushed, had a collar soiled with pomade or 
 powder, and white metal buttons that were turning 
 red. He was so shame-faced in all that frippery, 
 that I dared not look at him. His claque, a sort of 
 semi-circle of felt, which it was the fashion in those 
 days to carry under the arm instead of wearing it on 
 the head, must have seen several governments. 
 Nevertheless, my friend had evidently spent a few 
 sous at the barber's, for he was shaved. His hair 
 was gathered up behind, fastened with a comb, 
 powdered profusely and smelt of pomade. I saw 
 two parallel chains on the front of his breeches, two 
 chains of tarnished steel, but no sign of a watch in 
 the fob. It was winter and Mongenod had no cloak; 
 divers large drops of melted snow that had fallen 
 from the roofs of the houses as he walked along, 
 spotted the collar of his houppelande. When he 
 removed his rabbit-skin gloves and I saw his right 
 hand, I detected the marks of work of some sort,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 119 
 
 and hard work too. Now, his father, who was an 
 advocate before the Grand Conseil, had left him 
 some property, five or six thousand francs a year. 
 I realized at once that Mongenod had come to borrow 
 of me. I had in a safe hiding-place two hundred 
 louis d'or, an enormous sum for those days, worth 
 I forget how many hundred thousand francs in 
 assignats. Mongenod and I had studied at the same 
 college, Des Grassins, and we had met again in the 
 office of the same attorney, an honest man, the 
 excellent Bordin. When a man has passed his 
 youth and indulged in youthful escapades with a 
 school-fellow, there is an almost sacred bond of 
 sympathy between them; his voice and look stir 
 certain chords in the heart that vibrate only under 
 the influence of the memories he revives. Even 
 when one has had just grounds for complaint against 
 such a comrade, all the rights of friendship are not 
 done away with; but there had never been the 
 slightest disagreement between us. At the time 
 of his father's death in 1787, Mongenod was richer 
 than I; although I had never borrowed from him, I 
 had sometimes been indebted to him for the enjoy- 
 ment of pleasures which my own father's rigorous 
 treatment made impossible to me. Had it not been 
 for my generous school-fellow, I should not have 
 seen the first performance of the Mariage de Figaro. 
 Mongenod was then what was called a charming 
 gallant, he had love-affairs; I used to rebuke him 
 for his readiness to form new ties and his too 
 accommodating spirit; his purse opened easily, he
 
 120 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 lived handsomely, he would have served as your 
 second when he had seen you but twice. Mon Dieu, 
 you carry me back to the days of my youth!" cried 
 honest Alain, pausing in his narrative, and smiling 
 happily at Godefroid. 
 
 "Do you bear me a grudge for it?" said Gode- 
 froid. 
 
 "Oh! no, and by my going into details as I do, 
 you can see how large a place that incident fills in 
 my life. Mongenod, a man of excellent heart and 
 approved courage, something of a Voltairean, was 
 disposed to play the gentleman," continued Monsieur 
 Alain; "his education at Des Grassins, where some 
 scions of the nobility were among his school-fellows, 
 and his love-affairs had given him the polished 
 manners of men of condition, who were then called 
 aristocrats. You can imagine now how great my 
 surprise was when I detected in Mongenod the 
 symptoms of destitution which degraded the fashion- 
 able young dandy of 1787 in my eyes, when they 
 left his face to scrutinize his clothing. However, as 
 some crafty persons designedly adopted the external 
 appearances of poverty in those days of public 
 misery, and as there were other sufficient reasons 
 for disguising one's self, I awaited an explanation, but 
 not without inviting it. 
 
 " 'Well, well, what sort of a plight is this for you 
 to be in, my dear Mongenod?' I exclaimed, accept- 
 ing a pinch of snuff which he offered me in an 
 imitation gold snuff-box. 
 
 " 'Sad enough!' he replied. 'I have but one
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 121 
 
 friend left, and you are he. I have done all I could 
 do to avoid coming to this, but I am here to ask you 
 for a hundred louis. It is a large sum,' he said, 
 noticing my astonishment; 'but if you should give 
 me only fifty, I should be unable ever to repay you; 
 whereas, if I fail in what I mean to undertake, I 
 shall still have fifty louis with which to try my for- 
 tune in other directions; and I do not know what 
 inspiration despair may give me.' 
 
 " 'Have you nothing at all?' I asked. 
 
 " 'I have five sous left out of my last gold piece,' 
 he replied, choking back a tear. 'Before coming to 
 you, I had my boots polished and visited a barber. 
 I have what clothes I am wearing. But,' he added 
 with an eloquent gesture, 'I owe my landlady a 
 thousand crowns in assignais, and our eating-house 
 keeper refused to trust me yesterday. So I am 
 without resource.' 
 
 " 'And what do you expect to do?' I asked, trying 
 already to ascertain his thoughts. 
 
 " 'To enlist, if you refuse ' 
 
 " 'You, a soldier! You, Mongenod!' 
 
 " 'I will either be killed or become General 
 Mongenod.' 
 
 " 'Very well,' I said, deeply moved, 'eat your 
 breakfast in peace, I have a hundred louis.' 
 
 "Just there," continued the good man with a 
 shrewd glance at Godefroid, "I thought it necessary 
 to indulge in a money-lender's little falsehood. 
 
 " 'It is all I own in the world,' I said to Mongenod; 
 'I was awaiting the moment when public securities
 
 122 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 should reach the lowest possible point, before 
 investing the money, but I will put it in your hands, 
 and you may look upon me as your partner; I leave 
 it to your conscience to see that it is repaid in due 
 time. An honest man's conscience,' I added, 'is 
 the best of guarantees.' 
 
 "Mongenod gazed earnestly at me as he listened, 
 and seemed to be engraving my words on his heart. 
 He put out his right hand, I placed my left hand in 
 it, and we exchanged a warm handclasp, I deeply 
 moved, he without trying to check two great tears 
 that rolled down his already wasted cheeks. The 
 sight of those two tears tore my heart. I was even 
 more touched when, forgetting everything in the 
 excitement of the moment, Mongenod took out a 
 wretched, torn cotton handkerchief to wipe his 
 eyes. 
 
 " 'Stay here!' I said to him, leaving the room to 
 go to my hiding-place, my heart as agitated as if 
 I had just been listening to a woman's confession 
 that she loved me. I returned with two rolls of fifty 
 louis each. 
 
 " 'Here, count them.' 
 
 "He refused to count them, but looked around the 
 room in search of a writing desk, in order to give 
 me an acknowledgment, as he said. I flatly refused 
 to take any paper from him. 
 
 " 'If I should die,' I said, 'my heirs would annoy 
 you. This must be between ourselves.' 
 
 "Finding me so good a friend, Mongenod laid aside 
 the mask of chagrin and anxiety he had worn when
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 123 
 
 he came in, and became cheerful. My housekeeper 
 served us some oysters with white wine, an omelet, 
 kidneys d, la brochette, the remains of a Chartres pie 
 that my old mother had sent me, a little dessert, 
 coffee and Curacoa. Mongenod, who had been 
 fasting for two days, did full justice to the repast. 
 We sat at table until three in the afternoon, like the 
 best friends in the world, talking over our life before 
 the Revolution. Mongenod told me how he had 
 lost his fortune. In the first place, the fall in the 
 securities of the city had cut off two-thirds of his 
 income, for his father had invested the greater part 
 of his capital in them; then, after selling his house 
 on Rue de Savoie, he had been obliged to take his 
 pay in assignats; he had thereupon taken it into his 
 head to publish a newspaper, La Sentinelle, which 
 had forced him to flee, after an existence of six 
 months. At that moment all his hopes rested upon 
 the success of a comic opera entitled Les Peruvtens. 
 This last disclosure made me tremble. Mongenod, 
 turned author, after running through his money 
 with La Sentinelle, and living doubtless at the 
 theatre, on terms of intimacy with Feydeau's 
 singers, with musicians and the curious society that 
 hides behind the drop-curtain, no longer seemed to 
 me the same Mongenod. I was conscious of a slight 
 thrill of anxiety. But how was I to take back my 
 hundred louis? I could see the shape of one of the 
 rolls in each pocket of his breeches, like the barrel 
 of a pistol. Mongenod left me. When I found 
 myself alone, no longer under the spell of that
 
 124 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 poignant, cruel poverty, I began to reflect in spite 
 of myself, I became sober. 
 
 "'Mongenod,' I thought, 'is undoubtedly sadly 
 depraved, and he has been acting a part with 
 me!' 
 
 "His cheerfulness when he saw me recklessly 
 give him such an enormous sum, seemed to me 
 then to be the joy of a stage servant laying a trap 
 for some Geronte. I ended where I should have 
 begun, I promised to make inquiries concerning my 
 friend Mongenod, who had written his address for 
 me on the back of a playing-card. A sort of delicacy 
 prevented me from going to see him the next day; 
 he might have scented suspicion in my promptitude. 
 The second day various matters took up all my 
 attention, and it was not until a fortnight had 
 elapsed, that, having seen nothing of Mongenod, I 
 went one morning from the Croix-Rouge, where I 
 then lived, to Rue des Moineaux, where he lived. 
 Mongenod lodged in a furnished house of the lowest 
 order, the mistress of which, however, was a very 
 excellent woman, the widow of a farmer-general 
 who died on the scaffold; being completely ruined, 
 she had started with a few louis upon the hazardous 
 trade of lodging-house keeper. Since then, she has 
 had seven houses in the Saint-Roch quarter, and 
 has made her fortune. 
 
 " 'Citizen Mongenod is not in, but there is some- 
 body in his room/ she informed me. 
 
 "The last words aroused my curiosity. I went 
 up to the fifth floor. A charming young woman
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 12$ 
 
 opened the door! oh! a most beautiful creature 
 who, with a very suspicious air, stood in the door- 
 way. 
 
 " 'I am Alain, Mongenod's friend/ I said. 
 
 "The door was at once thrown open and I entered 
 a horrible garret, which was kept wonderfully clean 
 and neat, however, by the young woman in ques- 
 tion. She pushed a chair in front of a fireplace 
 filled with ashes but without fire, in a corner of 
 which I saw a common earthen chafing-dish. It 
 was freezing cold. 
 
 "'I am very happy, monsieur,' she said, taking 
 my hands and pressing them warmly, 'to have an 
 opportunity of expressing my gratitude to you, for 
 you are our savior. Except for you, perhaps, I 
 never should have seen Mongenod again. He would 
 have what? thrown himself into the river. He 
 was desperate when he left me to go to see you.' 
 
 "Upon looking closely at the young woman, I 
 was amazed to see a silk handkerchief on her head, 
 and under the handkerchief, behind the head and 
 around the temples, a black shadow; but, by dint 
 of looking and looking, I discovered that her head 
 was shaved. 
 
 " 'Are you ill?' I asked, when I felt sure of that 
 extraordinary fact. 
 
 "She glanced into a wretched, dirty mirror over 
 the fireplace and began to blush; then her eyes 
 filled with tears. 
 
 " 'Yes, monsieur,' she replied hastily; 'I had 
 horrible pains in my head and I was forced to part
 
 126 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 with my beautiful hair, that used to fall to my 
 heels.' 
 
 " 'Have I the honor of speaking to Madame 
 Mongenod?' I asked. 
 
 " 'Yes, monsieur,' she replied, with a truly 
 celestial glance. 
 
 "I took leave of the poor little woman. I went 
 down stairs with the intention of making the land- 
 lady talk, but she had gone out. I was convinced 
 that the young woman must have sold her hair in 
 order to buy bread. I went to a dealer in wood and 
 sent half a load to the house, requesting the 
 teamster and sawyers to give the little woman a 
 receipted bill in the name of Monsieur Mongenod. 
 That is the end of the period of what I long 
 called my idiocy," said Goodman Alain, clasping 
 his hands and raising them a little with a repentant 
 gesture. 
 
 Godefroid could not refrain from smiling, and his 
 smile, as we shall see, was sadly misplaced. 
 
 "Two days later," the old man continued, "I 
 met one of those persons who are neither friends nor 
 enemies, but with whom we have some intercourse 
 at long intervals what we call an acquaintance 
 one Monsieur Barillaud, who, when Les Peruviens 
 was casually mentioned, said that he was a friend 
 of the author. 
 
 " 'Do you know Citizen Mongenod?' I asked. 
 
 "In those days we were still obliged to use the 
 familiar mode of address," he explained to Godefroid 
 by way of parenthesis.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 127 
 
 "The citizen looked at me," he continued, resum- 
 ing his narrative, "and exclaimed: 
 
 " 'I should be very glad if I had never known 
 him, for he has borrowed money of me several 
 times, and manifests sufficient friendship for me to 
 neglect to return it. He's a devil of a man; a good 
 fellow enough, but full of illusions! oh! he has a 
 fiery imagination. I do him justice, he doesn't 
 mean to deceive; but, as he deceives himself in 
 everything, the result is that he acts like a 
 swindler.' 
 
 " 'How much does he owe you?' 
 
 " 'Oh! a few hundred crowns. He's a basket with 
 a hole in it No one knows where his money leaks 
 out, perhaps he doesn't know himself/ 
 
 " 'Has he any means?' 
 
 " 'Oh yes!' said Barillaud, with a laugh. 'At this 
 moment he is talking of buying land among the 
 savages, in the United States.' 
 
 "I carried away that drop of vinegar, which 
 calumny had implanted in my heart and which 
 soured all my kindly inclinations. I went to see 
 my former employer, who acted as my adviser. As 
 soon as I had entrusted to him the secret of my loan 
 to Mongenod and the way in which I had acted: 
 
 " 'What,' he cried, 'do you say that one of my 
 old clerks is acting like that! Why, you ought to 
 have put him off until the next day and come to see 
 me. You would have learned that I have given 
 orders not to let Mongenod pass my door. He has 
 already borrowed a hundred crowns of me within a
 
 128 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 year, an enormous sum! And three days before he 
 went to breakfast with you, he met me in the street 
 and described his misery in such heartrending terms 
 that I gave him two louis.' 
 
 " 'If I have been duped by a clever actor, so 
 much the worse for him, not for me/ I said. 'But 
 what am I to do?' 
 
 ." 'You must at least obtain some acknowledgment 
 from him, for a debtor, however unreliable he is, 
 may become solvent, and then you are paid.' 
 
 "Thereupon Bordin produced from a box on his 
 desk an envelope on which I saw the name of 
 Mongenod; he showed me three notes for a hundred 
 francs each. 
 
 " 'The first time he comes/ he said, 'I shall make 
 him add the interest, the two louis I gave him and 
 whatever other sum he asks me for; then he must 
 sign an acceptance for the whole amount, with 
 interest from the day of the loan. Then I shall be 
 all right and I shall have a way of enforcing pay- 
 ment.' 
 
 " 'Very well/ I said to Bordin, 'can't you make 
 me all right in the same way? for you are an honest 
 man and whatever you do is done as it should be.' 
 
 " 'In that way I am master of the field/ replied 
 the ex-attorney. 'When a man does as you have 
 done, he's at the mercy of a man who may make a 
 fool of him. For my part, I don't propose to be 
 made a fool of! Laugh at an ex-attorney at the 
 Ch^telet! ta-ra-ra! Every man to whom another 
 lends a sum of money as you foolishly lent yours
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 129 
 
 to Mongenod, comes sooner or later to believe that 
 it belongs to him. It isn't your money, it's his 
 money, and you become his creditor, an embarrass- 
 ment to him. Thereupon he tries to rid himself of 
 you, making a bargain with his conscience; and out 
 of every hundred men, seventy-five will do their 
 best never to meet you again so long as they live.' 
 
 " 'So you consider that only twenty-five per cent 
 of mankind are honest?" 
 
 " 'Did I say that?' he replied with a sly smile. 
 'That's a large percentage.' 
 
 "Two weeks later I received a letter from Bordin 
 asking me to call upon him and get my note. I went. 
 
 "'I tried to save fifty louis for you,' he said. I 
 had told him of my conversation with Mongenod. 
 'But the birds have flown. Say good-bye to your 
 yellow boys! Your canary birds have flown to a 
 warmer climate. We have a sharp fellow to deal 
 with. Did he not assure me that his wife and 
 father-in-law had gone to the United States with 
 sixty of your louis to buy land, and that he expected 
 to join them there and make a fortune in order to 
 return and pay his debts, of which he gave me a 
 schedule in due form, for he requested me to find 
 out what might become of his creditors. Here is the 
 statement summarized,' said Bordin, showing me a 
 paper from which he read the total: 'Seventeen 
 thousand francs in cash! a sum with which he could 
 buy a house worth two thousand crowns a year!' 
 
 "Having replaced the papers in the box, he 
 handed me a note of hand for the equivalent of a 
 9
 
 130 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 hundred louis in gold, expressed in assignats, with a 
 note from Mongenod, acknowledging the receipt of 
 a hundred louis in gold and agreeing to pay the 
 interest. 
 
 " 'I am all right now, am I?' said I to Bordin. 
 
 " 'He won't deny the debt,' my former employer 
 replied; 'but where there is nothing, the king, that 
 is to say the Directory, loses its rights. ' 
 
 "With that I left him. Believing that I had been 
 robbed by a method which the law does not reach, 
 I withdrew my esteem from Mongenod and resigned 
 myself very philosophically to my fate. 
 
 "If I dwell upon these commonplace and appar- 
 ently trivial details," continued the good man, 
 looking at Godefroid, "I have my reasons for so 
 doing; I am trying to explain to you how I was led 
 to act as the majority of men act, at random and in 
 defiance of the rules that even savages observe in 
 the most trifling matters. Many people would justify 
 themselves by throwing the blame on a prudent 
 man like Bordin; but it seems to me to-day that my 
 conduct was inexcusable. When it is a question of 
 passing judgment upon one of our fellow-creatures 
 by refusing him our esteem forever, we should rely 
 upon ourselves alone; and again: ought we to 
 constitute our own hearts a tribunal before which 
 to cite a neighbor? Where would be the law? by 
 what measure should we mete out justice? May 
 not the very thing that is weakness in us be strength 
 in our neighbor? There are as many different 
 circumstances as there are human beings, for the
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 131 
 
 same thing never happens twice in the same way. 
 Society alone has the right of repression over its 
 members; for I deny it the right of punishment: to 
 repress is enough for it and it carries with it, too, 
 sufficient cruelty. 
 
 "So, paying heed to the high-flown talk of a 
 Parisian man of business and admiring the shrewd- 
 ness of my former employer, I passed condemnation 
 upon Mongenod," the good man continued, after 
 giving utterance to that sublime reflection. Les 
 Perwviens was announced. I expected that Mongenod 
 would send me a ticket for the first performance. I 
 was conscious of a feeling of superiority to him; my 
 friend seemed to me, by reason of the loan, a sort 
 of vassal who owed me a multitude of things over 
 and above the interest on my money. We all act 
 so! Not only did Mongenod not send me a ticket, 
 but when I saw him at a distance in the dark 
 passage-way under the Feydeau theatre well- 
 dressed, almost dandified he pretended not to see 
 me; and when he had passed me and I started to 
 run after him, my debtor made his escape down a 
 side passage. That incident annoyed me keenly. 
 My irritation was not a mere passing sentiment, but 
 it increased with time. It happened thus. A few 
 days after this meeting I wrote Mongenod a letter in 
 substantially these words: 
 
 " 'My friend, you cannot think me indifferent to anything 
 that may happen to you, whether it be good or ill-fortune. 
 Are you satisfied with Les Ptruviens? You forgot me, as you 
 had a perfect right to do, for the first performance, which I
 
 132 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 would have applauded so heartily! However, I trust that it 
 will be a veritable Peru to you, for I have employment for 
 my money and I count upon you when the note matures. 
 " 'Your friend, 
 
 "'ALAIN.' 
 
 "After waiting a fortnight without receiving a 
 reply, I went to Rue des Moineaux. The landlady 
 informed me that the little woman had really gone 
 away with her father at the time Mongenod had 
 told Bordin of their departure. Mongenod left his 
 garret early in the morning and did not return until 
 late at night. Another fortnight passed and I wrote 
 another letter in these terms: 
 
 " 'My dear Mongenod, I see nothing of you, you do not 
 answer my letters: I cannot understand your conduct; what 
 would you think of me if I should act so to you?' 
 
 "I did not sign that letter Your friend; I simply 
 wrote Kind regards. A month passed and I heard 
 nothing from Mongenod. Les Peruviens did not 
 achieve the great success that Mongenod expected. 
 I attended the twentieth performance to try to get 
 my money, and the audience was very small. 
 Madame Scio was very beautiful though. They 
 told me in the green room that the play was to be 
 given several times more. I called on Mongenod 
 seven times but did not find him, and every time I 
 left my name with the landlady. Then I wrote to 
 him: 
 
 " 'Monsieur, if you do not wish to forfeit my esteem after 
 forfeiting my friendship, you will treat me now as a stranger,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 133 
 
 that is to say with courtesy, and tell if you will be prepared 
 to pay your note at its maturity. My future movements will 
 be guided by your reply. 
 
 " 'Your servant, 
 
 " 'ALAIN.' 
 
 "No reply. It was the year 1799; a year had 
 passed, lacking two months. When the note 
 matured I went to Bordin. Bordin took the note, 
 had it protested and brought suit. The disasters 
 experienced by the French armies had depreciated 
 the funds to such an extent that an expenditure of 
 seven francs would yield five francs a year. Thus 
 I could have invested a hundred louis in gold to 
 bring me in fifteen hundred francs. Every morning, 
 as I drank my coffee and read my newspaper, I 
 would say: 
 
 " 'That infernal Mongenod! If it weren't for 
 him I should have a thousand crowns a year!' 
 
 "Mongenod had become my b$te noire, I grumbled 
 at him as I walked along the street. 
 
 " 'Bordin is on hand,' I said to myself, 'he will 
 push him hard, and it will be a good thing!' 
 
 "My hatred vented itself in imprecations, I cursed 
 the man and charged him with every vice in the 
 calendar. Ah! Monsieur Barillaud was quite right 
 in what he said to me. At last one morning my 
 debtor appeared at my rooms, no more embarrassed 
 than if he did not owe me a centime; when my eye 
 fell upon him I felt all the shame that he should 
 have felt. I was like a criminal caught in the act. 
 I was very ill at ease. The i8th Brumaire had
 
 134 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 come and gone, everything was in fine shape, the 
 Funds were rising and Bonaparte had gone to Italy 
 for the campaign that ended with the battle of 
 Marengo. 
 
 "'It is unfortunate, monsieur,' I said, receiving 
 him standing, 'that I owe your visit only to the 
 urgency of a bailiff.' 
 
 "Mongenod took a chair and sat down. 
 
 " 'I have come to tell you,' he replied, 'that I am 
 not in a position to pay you.' 
 
 " 'You made me lose an opportunity to invest my 
 money before the First Consul's arrival, when I 
 might have made a little fortune.' 
 
 "'I know it, Alain,' he said, 'I know it. But 
 what is the use of suing and forcing me deeper into 
 debt by loading me down with costs? I have heard 
 from my wife and my father-in-law; they have bought 
 land and have sent me a memorandum of the things 
 they need to establish themselves: I have had to 
 use all my ready money in making those purchases. 
 Now I propose to sail on a Dutch vessel, from 
 Flushing, where I have sent all my little belongings, 
 and nobody can prevent my going. Bonaparte has 
 won the battle of Marengo, a treaty of peace will 
 soon be signed and I can without fear join my 
 family, for my dear little wife was enceinte when 
 she went away.' 
 
 " 'So you have sacrificed me in your own inter- 
 est?' I said. 
 
 " 'Yes,' he replied, 'I thought that you were my 
 friend.'
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 135 
 
 "At that moment I felt inferior to Mongenod, he 
 seemed so sublime to me as he uttered those simple 
 yet grand words. 
 
 " 'Did I not tell you?' he continued. 'Was I not 
 absolutely frank with you, here, in this very room? 
 I came to you, Alain, as to the only person who 
 could understand me. "Fifty louis," I said to you, 
 "would be thrown away; but a hundred I will repay 
 you." I mentioned no time; for can I tell on what 
 day I shall have ended my long struggle with 
 poverty? You were my last friend. All my 
 friends, even our old employer Bordin, despised me 
 for the very reason that I borrowed money of them. 
 Ah! Alain, you know nothing of the cruel sensation 
 that tears the heart of an honest man engaged in a 
 hand-to-hand struggle with misfortune, when he 
 goes to a friend to ask for help! and all that 
 follows! I trust that you may never know it: it is 
 more horrible than the agony of death. You wrote 
 me letters which, coming from me under similar 
 circumstances, would have seemed very hateful to 
 you. You expected me to do things that were not 
 in my power. You are the only one to whom I 
 have undertaken to justify myself. Despite the 
 harsh measures you have taken, and although you 
 transformed yourself from a friend to a creditor on 
 the day when Bordin demanded of me a note for 
 you, thus proving false to the spirit of the sublime 
 contract we made in this room, as we grasped each 
 other's hands and mingled our tears, I remembered 
 only that morning. Because of that hour I have
 
 136 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 come to say to you: "You know nothing of misfor- 
 tune, so do not rail at it!" I have not had an hour 
 or a second to write to you and answer your 
 letters! Perhaps you would have liked me to come 
 and wheedle you? You might as well ask a hare, 
 tired out by the dogs and hunters, to stop to rest in 
 a clearing and nibble the grass there! I have not 
 had a bank-note to give you, not one; I have not 
 had enough to meet the demands of those upon 
 whom my fate depended. Being a novice in writing 
 for the stage, I have been the victim of musicians, 
 actors, singers and orchestra. In order to be able 
 to go out and buy what my family needed across 
 the ocean, I sold Les Peruviens to the manager, with 
 two other plays that I had in my desk. I am 
 starting for Holland without a sou. I shall eat 
 nothing but bread until I reach Flushing. My 
 journey is paid for and that is all. Except for the 
 compassion of my landlady, who has confidence in 
 me, I should have had to travel on foot with my 
 wallet on my back. And so, notwithstanding your 
 suspicions concerning me, as I should not have been 
 able to send my wife and mother-in-law to New 
 York except for you, my gratitude to you remains 
 unimpaired. No, Monsieur Alain, I shall not forget 
 that the hundred louis you lent me would be 
 bringing you in fifteen hundred francs a year.' 
 
 " 'I would like to believe you, Mongenod,' I said, 
 almost melted by the tone in which he uttered this 
 explanation. 
 
 " 'Ah! you no longer call me monsieur,' he said
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 137 
 
 eagerly, looking into my face with a moved expres- 
 sion, 'God knows that I should leave France with 
 less regret if I could leave behind me one man in 
 whose eyes I am neither half a knave nor a spend- 
 thrift nor a victim of illusions. I have loved an angel 
 in the midst of my misery. A man who loves truly, 
 Alain, is never wholly contemptible.' 
 
 "At that I put out my hand, he took it and 
 pressed it warmly. 
 
 " 'May Heaven protect you!' I said. 
 
 " 'We are still friends?' he asked. 
 
 " 'Yes,' I replied. 'It shall not be said that the 
 companion of my childhood and the friend of my 
 youth set out for America under the weight of my 
 anger.' 
 
 "Mongenod embraced me, with tears in his eyes, 
 and rushed to the door. When I met Bordin a few 
 days later, I described the interview from beginning 
 to end, and he said, with a smile: 
 
 " 'I trust that it wasn't a scene out of a comedy! 
 He didn't ask you for anything?' 
 
 " 'No.' 
 
 " 'He came to me, too, and I was almost as weak 
 as you; he asked me for enough to feed him on the 
 journey. However, the one who lives will see 
 what happens!' 
 
 "That remark of Bordin's made me fear that I 
 had foolishly yielded to a compassionate impulse. 
 
 " 'But even he, the attorney, did as I did!' I said 
 to myself. 
 
 "I do not think it worth while to explain to you
 
 138 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 how I lost all my fortune, except my other hun- 
 dred louis which I invested in consols at such a 
 high premium that I had barely five hundred francs 
 a year to live upon, when I was thirty-four years 
 old. Through Bordin's influence I obtained a posi- 
 tion at a salary of eight hundred francs at the Rue 
 des Petits-Augustins branch of the Mont-de-Piete. 
 I lived very modestly. I had lodgings on the third 
 floor of a house on Rue des Marais a small suite 
 consisting of two rooms and a cabinet for two 
 hundred and fifty francs. I dined at a bourgeois 
 boarding-house for forty francs a month. I did 
 copying in the evening. Ugly as I am and poor, I 
 had to abandon all thought of marriage " 
 
 As poor Alain pronounced that sentence upon 
 himself with adorable resignation, Godefroid made 
 a gesture more eloquent than any words could have 
 been of a similarity between their destinies, and the 
 good man, in reply to that eloquent gesture, seemed 
 to await some remark from his listener. 
 
 "Have you never been loved?" Godefroid 
 asked. 
 
 "Never!" was the reply; "except by Madame, 
 who returns the love we all feel for her, a love that 
 I may call divine. You have had an opportunity to 
 realize the truth of what I say; we live in her life as 
 she lives in ours; we have only one heart between 
 us; and although not physical, our pleasures are none 
 the less keen, for we exist only through the heart. 
 What would you have, my child?" he continued; 
 "when women learn to appreciate moral qualities,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 139 
 
 they have done with externals, and then they are 
 old. I have suffered bitterly, you see!" 
 
 "Ah! I know what it means," said Godefroid. 
 
 "Under the Empire," the good man continued, 
 looking down again, "interest on the Funds was not 
 paid promptly, and one had to provide for intervals 
 of non-payment. There was not a week, from 
 1802 to 1814, when I did not attribute my sorrows to 
 Mongenod. 
 
 " 'Except for Mongenod/ I would say to myself, 
 'I might have married. Except for him I should not 
 be obliged to live in privation.' 
 
 "But sometimes too I would say to myself: 
 
 " 'Perhaps the poor fellow is having hard luck 
 over yonder!' 
 
 "In 1806, one day when my life seemed a heavy 
 burden, I wrote him a long letter which I sent by 
 way of Holland. I received no reply, and I waited 
 three years, founding upon that reply hopes that 
 were constantly disappointed. At last I became 
 resigned to my life. To my five hundred francs a 
 year and my twelve hundred at the Mont-de-Piete, 
 for my salary had been increased I added five 
 hundred for services as book-keeper to Monsieur 
 Birotteau, a perfumer. Thus, not only was I able 
 to live, but I laid by eight hundred francs a year. 
 Early in 1814, I invested my savings, amounting to 
 nine thousand francs, in the public funds at forty, 
 and I had sixteen hundred francs assured for my 
 old age. Thus I had fifteen hundred francs from 
 the Mont-de-Piete, six hundred for my book-keeping,
 
 140 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 sixteen hundred from the Funds, in all three thousand 
 seven hundred francs. I hired an apartment on Rue 
 de Seine and lived a little better. My place brought 
 me in contact with many poor wretches. In twelve 
 years I had become better acquainted than most peo- 
 ple with the public misery. Once or twice I helped 
 some poor devil. I felt the keenest pleasure when 
 one or two of the ten families that were indebted to 
 me succeeded in getting out of difficulty. It occurred 
 to me that benevolence does not consist simply in 
 tossing money to those who are suffering. What is 
 commonly called charity seems to me to be very 
 often a sort of premium placed on crime. I began 
 to study the question. I was then fifty years old 
 and my life was almost done. 
 
 " 'What am I good for?' I asked myself. 'To 
 whom shall I leave my fortune? When I have 
 furnished my apartment handsomely, when I have 
 a good cook, when my existence is reasonably well 
 assured, how shall I employ my time?' 
 
 "Thus eleven years of revolution and fifteen 
 years of poverty had consumed the pleasantest part 
 of my life, had worn it out in profitless toil or 
 employed it simply in self-preservation! At that 
 time of life no man can take a fresh start from such 
 an obscure destiny, fettered by need, toward a 
 brilliant destiny; but one can always make one's self 
 useful. I realized at last that careful oversight, 
 with abundance of good advice, increased tenfold 
 the value of money given, for the unfortunate need 
 guidance most of all; when you teach them to make
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 141 
 
 the most of the work they do for others, the intelli- 
 gence of the speculator is not what they need. Two 
 or three satisfactory results that I obtained made 
 me very proud. I had discovered both an aim and 
 an occupation, to say nothing of the exquisite 
 enjoyment afforded by the pleasure of playing the 
 role of Providence on a small scale." 
 
 "And you are playing it to-day on a large scale, 
 are you not?" asked Godefroid earnestly. 
 
 "Oh! you want to know everything!" said the 
 old man; "no, no. Would you believe it?" he 
 continued after a pause; "the slender resources 
 that my small fortune placed at my disposal carried 
 my mind back frequently to Mongenod. 
 
 " 'Except for Mongenod, I should have been able 
 to do much more,' I said. 'If a dishonest man had 
 not cheated me out of fifteen hundred francs a year,' 
 I often thought, 'I might save such and such a 
 family.' 
 
 "And so, as I explained my powerlessness by an 
 accusation, those to whom I offered no consolation 
 but words cursed Mongenod with me. Those 
 maledictions relieved my heart. 
 
 "One morning, in January, 1816, my housekeeper 
 announced whom? Mongenod! Monsieur Monge- 
 nod! And whom did I see enter my room? the 
 same lovely woman, then about thirty-six years old, 
 and with her, three children; then Mongenod, 
 younger than when he went away, for wealth and 
 happiness spread a halo about their favorites. When 
 I last saw him, he was thin, pale, yellow, bilious;
 
 142 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 he returned stout and ruddy as a canon, and well 
 dressed. He threw himself into my arms and, find- 
 ing that I received him but coldly, his first words were: 
 
 " 'Could I have come any sooner, my friend? 
 The sea has been open only since 1815, and it took 
 me eighteen months to turn my property into cash, 
 collect what was owing to me and close up my 
 business. I have been successful, my friend! 
 When I received your letter, in 1806, I was starting 
 on a Dutch vessel to bring you a small fortune with 
 my own hands; but the alliance between Holland 
 and the French Empire led to my being taken by the 
 English, who sent me to Jamaica, whence I escaped 
 by a lucky chance. On my return to New York, I 
 found that I had been victimized by several failures; 
 for, in my absence, poor Charlotte had not been 
 suspicious enough of clever schemers. So I was 
 compelled to recommence the building of my fortune. 
 However, here we are at last. By the way in 
 which these children look at you, you should divine 
 that we have often spoken to them of the family 
 benefactor!' 
 
 " 'Oh! yes, monsieur,' said pretty Madame 
 Mongenod, 'there has not been a single day that we 
 haven't thought of you. Your share has been 
 calculated in all our undertakings. We have all 
 looked forward to the joy we feel at this moment in 
 offering you your fortune, without suggesting, how- 
 ever, that this tithe of the Lord will ever pay our 
 debt of gratitude.' 
 
 "As she spoke Madame Mongenod handed me
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 143 
 
 the magnificent casket you see yonder, in which 
 were a hundred and fifty thousand-franc notes. 
 
 " 'You have suffered terribly, I know, my poor 
 Alain; but we divined your sufferings and we wore 
 ourselves out trying to devise methods of sending 
 you the money, but always without success,' said 
 Mongenod. 'You told me that you weren't able to 
 marry; but our oldest daughter here has been 
 brought up in the idea of becoming your wife, and 
 she will have five hundred thousand francs for her 
 dowry ' 
 
 " 'God forbid that I should make her unhappy!' 
 I cried hastily, as I turned my eyes upon a girl as 
 lovely as her mother was at her age. 
 
 "I drew her to me and kissed her on the fore- 
 head. 
 
 " 'Don't be afraid, my beautiful child,' I said to 
 her. 'A man of fifty marry a girl of seventeen 
 and a man as ugly as I am! never!' I cried. 
 
 " 'Monsieur,' she replied, 'my father's benefactor 
 will never be ugly in my eyes.' 
 
 "Those words, uttered spontaneously and with 
 perfect candor, convinced me that everything 
 Mongenod had said was true; so I offered him my 
 hand and we embraced again. 
 
 " 'My friend,' I said to him, 'I have done you 
 wrong, for I have often accused you, cursed you ' 
 
 " 'As you should have done,' he replied, blushing; 
 'you suffered, and through me ' 
 
 "I took Mongenod's papers from a box and handed 
 them to him, thus discharging his debt.
 
 144 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 " 'You must all breakfast with me/ I said to the 
 family. 
 
 " 'On condition that you come and dine with 
 madame as soon as she is settled/ said Mongenod, 
 'for we arrived only yesterday. We are going to 
 buy a house and I propose to open a banking-house 
 in Paris with North American connections, so as to 
 leave it to this rascal/ he said, pointing to his oldest 
 son, who was then fifteen years old. 
 
 "We passed the rest of the day together and 
 went to the play in the evening, for Mongenod and 
 his family were hungry for the theatre. The next 
 day I invested the money in the public funds, and 
 I had about fifteen thousand francs a year in all. 
 That income enabled me to abandon keeping books 
 in the evening and to resign my position at the Mont- 
 de-Piete, to the great satisfaction of the substitutes. 
 After founding the banking-house of Mongenod et 
 Compagnie, which made enormous profits in the 
 first loans of the Restoration, my friend died in 1827, 
 at the age of sixty-three. His daughter, to whom 
 he gave later a dowry of more than a million, 
 married the Vicomte de Fontaine. The son, whom 
 you know, is not yet married; he lives with his 
 mother and his young brother. We obtain from 
 them all the money we happen to need. Frederic, 
 for his father gave him my name when he was born 
 in America Frederic Mongenod, at thirty-seven, 
 is one of the ablest and most upright bankers in 
 Paris. Not long ago Madame Mongenod finally 
 confessed to me that she sold her hair for twelve
 
 THE RETURN OF MONGENOD 
 
 "One morning, in January, 1816, my housekeeper 
 announced ivhoin ? Mongenod ! Monsieur Monge- 
 nod ! And zvhom did I see enter my room? the 
 same lovely woman, then about thirty-six years old, 
 and with her, three children"
 
 r Le oueuf
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 145 
 
 francs, to buy bread. She gives twenty-four loads 
 of wood every year, which I distribute among 
 the poor, to pay for the half load I sent her long 
 ago." 
 
 "That explains your relations with the house of 
 Mongenod," said Godefroid, "and your fortune." 
 
 The good man looked at Godefroid, still smiling 
 with the same mildly mischievous expression. 
 
 "Go on," continued Godefroid, understanding 
 from Monsieur Alain's air that he had not told 
 everything. 
 
 "That conclusion, my dear Godefroid, made a 
 most profound impression upon me. Although the 
 man who had suffered so keenly, although my friend 
 forgave the injustice I had done him, I shall never 
 forgive myself." 
 
 "Oh!" said Godefroid. 
 
 "I determined to devote the whole of my surplus 
 income, about ten thousand francs a year, to acts 
 of charity," continued Monsieur Alain tranquilly. 
 "I met, about that time, a judge of the tribunal of 
 the Seine, named Popinot, whom we had the mis- 
 fortune to lose three years ago, and who for fifteen 
 years was most active in all charitable work in the 
 Saint-Marcel quarter. He, together with our vener- 
 able vicar of NStre-Dame and Madame, conceived 
 the idea of starting the work in which we now 
 co-operate, and which has done some little good 
 secretly since 1825. The work has had a soul in 
 Madame de la Chanterie, for she has been in very 
 truth the soul of the whole enterprise. The vicar 
 
 10
 
 146 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 has succeeded in making us more religious than we 
 were at first, by proving to us the necessity of being 
 virtuous ourselves in order to be able to inspire 
 virtue, in order to preach from example. The 
 farther we have advanced on that path the happier 
 we have all found ourselves. Thus it was my 
 repentance for having misunderstood the heart of 
 my childhood's friend that gave me the idea of 
 devoting to the poor, on my own account, the for- 
 tune which he brought back to me and which I 
 accepted without crying out at the vastness of the 
 sum returned as compared with the sum I had 
 lent: its destination reconciled everything." 
 
 This story, told without emphasis and with touch- 
 ing simplicity of accent, gesture and expression, 
 would have aroused in Godefroid the desire to enter 
 that blessed, noble association, if he had not already 
 made up his mind to do so. 
 
 "You know little of the world," he said, "to have 
 such scruples concerning a matter that would not 
 trouble anybody's conscience." 
 
 "I know none but the unfortunate," the good 
 man rejoined. "I have no desire to know a world 
 where people are so ready to think evil of one 
 another. It is almost midnight, and I have rrjy 
 chapter of the Imitation of Jesus Christ to meditate 
 upon. Good-night." 
 
 Godefroid grasped the good man's hand and 
 pressed it with admiring warmth. 
 
 "Can you tell me Madame de la Chanterie's 
 story?" he asked.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 147 
 
 "That is impossible without her consent," the 
 good man replied, "for it is connected with one of 
 the most terrible incidents of the imperial regime. 
 It was through my friend Bordin that I came to know 
 Madame; he knows all the secrets of that noble life; it 
 was he who brought me to this house, so to speak." 
 
 "However that may be," rejoined Godefroid, "I 
 thank you for having told me your story; it contains 
 some useful lessons for me." 
 
 "Do you know what the moral of it is?" 
 
 "Tell me," said Godefroid, "for I might see in it 
 something different from what you see." 
 
 "Well, it is this," said the good man: "pleasure 
 is an accident in the Christian's life, not its end, 
 and we realize that too late." 
 
 "And what happens when one becomes a Chris- 
 tian?" queried Godefroid. 
 
 "Look!" said the good man. 
 
 He pointed out to Godefroid an inscription in gilt 
 letters on a black ground, which the new lodger had 
 never seen, as that was the first time he had been 
 in the good man's room. He turned and read the 
 words: TRANSIRE BENEFACIENDO. 
 
 "That, my child, is the meaning that life then 
 takes on. That is our motto. If you become one 
 of us, that will be the whole of your commission. 
 We read that advice, which we give to one another, 
 every hour in the day, when we rise, when we go 
 to bed, when we dress. Ah! if you knew what 
 boundless pleasure the carrying out of that motto 
 affords!"
 
 148 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "What, for instance?" said Godefroid, hoping for 
 revelations. 
 
 "In the first place, we are as rich as Baron de 
 Nucingen. But the Imitation of Jesus Christ forbids 
 our having anything of our own, we are only dis- 
 pensers, and if we had a single feeling of vainglory, 
 we should not be worthy to be dispensers. That 
 would not be transire benefaciendo, it would be to 
 enjoy by thought. If you should say to yourself 
 with a certain dilation of the nostrils: 'I am playing 
 the part of Providence!' as you might have said if 
 you had been in my place this morning saving the 
 lives of a whole family, you would be a Sardanapalus! 
 a wicked man! Not one of these gentlemen thinks 
 of himself when he does a good deed; one must strip 
 himself of all vanity, all pride, all self-love, and that 
 is a difficult task, I promise you!"
 
 Godefroid wished Monsieur Alain good night, and 
 returned to his room deeply moved by his story; but 
 his curiosity was rather excited than satisfied, for the 
 great figure of the picture presented by that house- 
 hold was Madame de la Chanterie. The story of 
 her life seemed to him such a desirable thing to 
 know, that he made it the object of his sojourn at 
 the H6tel de la Chanterie. He already divined a 
 charitable undertaking of vast scope in the associa- 
 tion of those five persons, but he thought much less 
 of it than of its heroine. 
 
 The neophyte passed several days watching more 
 closely than he had done hitherto the choice spirits 
 among whom he found himself, and he became the 
 subject of a moral phenomenon which modern 
 philanthropists have disdained from ignorance 
 perhaps. The sphere in which he was living had a 
 positive effect upon Godefroid. The law that 
 governs the physical nature relative to the influence 
 of atmospheric surroundings upon the conditions of 
 existence of developing organisms, governs the 
 moral nature as well; whence it follows that the 
 congregating of condemned men is one of the great- 
 est social crimes, and their isolation an experiment 
 of doubtful success. Condemned men should be 
 placed in religious institutions and surrounded by 
 (149)
 
 150 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 prodigies of good, instead of remaining amid miracles 
 of evil. We have a right to expect absolute devotion 
 on the part of the Church in that direction; if it sends 
 missionaries among wild or uncivilized peoples, how 
 joyfully should it entrust to religious orders the mis- 
 sion of receiving the wild men of civilization to cate- 
 chize them! for every criminal is an atheist, often 
 without knowing it. Godefroid found those five 
 persons endowed with the qualities which they 
 demanded of him; they were all without pride, with- 
 out vanity, truly humble and devout, with none of 
 the pretensions that go to make up devotion, using 
 that word in its bad sense. Their virtues were 
 contagious; he was seized with the desire to imitate 
 those unknown heroes, and he ended by studying 
 with passionate interest the book that he had begun 
 by despising. In a fortnight he reduced life to its 
 simplest form, to what it really is when considered 
 from the lofty standpoint to which the religious 
 spirit leads one. Lastly, his curiosity, which was at 
 first so worldly and spurred on by so many common- 
 place motives, became purified; if he did not entirely 
 renounce it, it was because It was difficult to lose 
 his interest concerning Madame de la Chanterie; 
 but he displayed, involuntarily, a degree of discre- 
 tion which was appreciated by those men, whose 
 faculties the divine Spirit developed to a most 
 incredible extent, as may be said of all true monks, 
 by the way. Concentration of the moral forces, by 
 whatever system it is brought about, increases their 
 scope tenfold.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 151 
 
 "Our friend is not converted yet," said good 
 Abbe de Veze; "but he is anxious to be." 
 
 An unexpected incident hastened the telling of 
 Madame de la Chanterie's story to Godefroid, so 
 that his curiosity in her regard was speedily gratified 
 in the most essential point. 
 
 All Paris was at that time deeply interested in the 
 conclusion, at Barriere Saint- Jacques, of one of the 
 ghastly criminal trials which mark epochs in the 
 annals of our assize courts. The extraordinary inter- 
 est aroused in the trial in question was due to the 
 criminals, whose audacity, whose mental attain- 
 ments, far superior to those of ordinary criminals, 
 whose cynical replies terrified society. It is a fact 
 worthy of note that no newspaper was admitted to 
 the Hotel de la Chanterie, and Godefroid only heard 
 of the dismissal of the appeal taken by the accused, 
 from his instructor in book-keeping, for the trial had 
 taken place long before his installation at Madame de 
 la Chanterie's. 
 
 "Do you ever fall in with such people as those 
 infernal villains," he asked his future friends, 
 "and, if you do, how do you act with them?" 
 
 "In the first place," said Monsieur Nicolas, 
 "there are no infernal villains, there are diseased 
 natures which should be confined at Charenton; 
 but, outside of those infrequent exceptions, we see 
 only men devoid of religious principles, or men who 
 reason badly; and the mission of the charitable man 
 is to uplift the minds of his fellows, to lead back into 
 the straight road those who have gone astray."
 
 152 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "And everything is possible to the apostle," 
 added Abbe de Veze, "he has God on his side." 
 
 "Suppose you should be sent to those two con- 
 victed felons," said Godefroid, "you would make 
 nothing out of them!" 
 
 "The time would be too short," observed Good- 
 man Alain. 
 
 "As a general rule," said Monsieur Nicolas, 
 "souls that are impenitent to the end are turned 
 over to the ministrations of religion when the time 
 is insufficient to perform miracles. The persons of 
 whom you speak would have become men of the 
 highest distinction in our hands, for their energy is 
 most extraordinary; but as soon as they have com- 
 mitted a murder, it becomes impossible to do any- 
 thing for them, human justice takes possession of 
 them." 
 
 "So you are opposed to capital punishment?" 
 queried Godefroid. 
 
 Monsieur Nicolas hastily rose and left the room. 
 
 "Never speak of capital punishment before Mon- 
 sieur Nicolas! He recognized his own natural child 
 in a criminal, whose execution his duty required him 
 to superintend." 
 
 "And he was innocent!" added Monsieur Joseph. 
 
 At that moment, Madame de la Chanterie, who 
 had left the salon for a few moments, returned. 
 
 "But you must admit," said Godefroid to Mon- 
 sieur Joseph, "that society cannot exist without 
 capital punishment, and that they whose heads are 
 to be cut off to-morrow morning "
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 153 
 
 Godefroid felt a strong hand placed over his 
 mouth, and Abbe de Veze led Madame de la 
 Chanterie, pale and almost fainting, from the room. 
 
 "What have you done?" exclaimed Monsieur 
 Joseph. "Take him away, Alain!" he added, 
 removing the hand with which he had gagged Gode- 
 froid. And he followed Abbe de Veze to Madame's 
 apartment. 
 
 "Come," said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid; "you 
 have forced me to confide the secrets of Madame's 
 life to you." 
 
 In a few moments the two friends were sitting 
 together in Alain's room, as on the evening when 
 the old man told the young man his own story. 
 
 "Well?" said Godefroid, whose face bore witness 
 to his despair at having been the cause of what, in 
 that pious household, might be called a catastrophe. 
 
 "I expect that Manon is coming to set our minds 
 at rest," replied the good man, listening to the ser- 
 vant's footsteps on the stairs. 
 
 "Madame is doing well, monsieur. Monsieur 
 1'Abbe has deceived her as to what was said!" said 
 Manon, with an almost angry glance at Godefroid. 
 
 11 Great heaven!" cried the poor fellow, his eyes 
 filling with tears. 
 
 "Come, take a seat," said Monsieur Alain, setting 
 the example. 
 
 He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. 
 
 "I do not know," began the good old man, "if I 
 have the necessary talent to describe worthily a life 
 so cruelly afflicted; you will forgive me if you find
 
 154 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 the words of so feeble an orator ill-adapted to the 
 acts and disasters with which that life is filled. 
 Remember that I left school many years ago, and 
 that I am the child of an age when much more at- 
 tention was paid to the thought than to its effect a 
 prosaic age in which people knew no other way than 
 to call things by their names." 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture of assent, in which 
 Alain could detect sincere admiration, and which 
 seemed to say: "I am listening." 
 
 "As you have just seen, my young friend," con- 
 tinued the old man, "it was impossible for you to 
 remain longer among us without being made ac- 
 quainted with some of the ghastly singularities of 
 that saintlike woman's life. There are certain 
 ideas, allusions, distressing words, which are abso- 
 lutely forbidden in this house, under pain of reopen- 
 ing wounds in Madame's heart, the pain of which, 
 once or twice renewed, might kill her." 
 
 "O my God!" cried Godefroid "what have I 
 done?" 
 
 "Except for Monsieur Joseph, who cut you short, 
 foreseeing that you were on the point of mentioning 
 the fatal instrument of death, you would have dealt 
 poor Madame a crushing blow. It is time that you 
 should know everything, for you will belong to us, 
 we are all convinced of it to-day. 
 
 "Madame de la Chanterie," he continued after a 
 pause, "belongs to one of the first families of Basse 
 Normandie. She was Mademoiselle Barbe-Philiberte 
 de Champignelles, of a younger branch of that
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 155 
 
 family. So she was destined to take the veil, un- 
 less a marriage could be arranged for her with 
 renunciation of her inheritance, according to the 
 common practice in poor families. A certain Sieur 
 de la Chanterie, whose family had fallen into the 
 deepest obscurity, although it dates from the cru- 
 sade of Philippe-Auguste, was anxious to recover 
 the position in the province of Normandie which his 
 ancient birth merited. He had lost caste in two 
 ways, for he had amassed some three hundred 
 thousand crowns in army contracts at the time of 
 the war with Hanover. Relying overmuch upon 
 that hoard, which provincial gossip exaggerated, 
 the son at Paris led a life calculated to arouse a 
 father's anxiety. Mademoiselle de Champignelles' 
 qualities obtained some celebrity in Le Bessin. The 
 old man, whose little fief of La Chanterie lies be- 
 tween Caen and Saint-L6, heard people say that 
 it seemed a pity that such an accomplished young 
 woman, so capable of making a man happy, should 
 end her days in a convent; and, when he expressed 
 the purpose of looking up the young woman, he was 
 led to believe that he might obtain Mademoiselle 
 Philiberte's hand for his son, provided that he would 
 take her without any dowry. He went to Bayeux, 
 procured several interviews with the Champignelles 
 family and was fascinated by the young woman's 
 eminent qualities. At sixteen years Mademoiselle 
 de Champignelles gave promise of all that she was 
 one day to be. One could see that her character 
 would be marked by steadfast piety, never-failing
 
 1 56 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 good sense, Inflexible probity, and that she had one 
 of those hearts which never abandon an affection, 
 even though they are commanded to do so. The. 
 old nobleman, enriched by his exactions from the 
 troops, saw in that charming creature the woman 
 who could hold his son in check by the authority of 
 virtue, by the ascendency of a firm but in no sense 
 rigid character: for, as you have seen, no one can 
 be more gentle than Madame de la Chanterie; nor 
 can anyone be more trustful than she; even in her 
 declining years she has the unsuspecting nature of 
 perfect innocence. In the old days she would never 
 believe in evil; the slight tendency to distrust, which 
 you have seen, is attributable to her misfortunes. 
 The old man agreed with the Champignelles to 
 renounce, in the marriage contract, all claim to 
 Mademoiselle Philiberte's inheritance; but, by way 
 of compensation, the Champignelles, who were 
 allied to some great families, promised to obtain the 
 elevation of the fief of La Chanterie to a barony, 
 and they kept their word. Madame de Bolsfrelon, 
 aunt of the future bridegroom and wife of the 
 counselor of parliament who died in the apartment 
 you now occupy, promised to bequeath her fortune 
 to her nephew. When all these arrangements had 
 been made between the two families, the father sent 
 for his son. The young man, who was Master of 
 Requests at the Grand Council, and was twenty- 
 five years old at the time of his marriage, had 
 indulged in some escapades with the young noble- 
 men of the day and had adopted their mode of life;
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 157 
 
 so it happened that the old contractor had paid 
 debts to a considerable amount several times over. 
 The poor man, having a prevision of fresh back- 
 slidings on his son's part, was overjoyed to settle a 
 certain amount upon his future daughter-in-law; but 
 he was so suspicious that he entailed the fief of La 
 Chanterie upon the male children to be born of the 
 marriage. 
 
 "The Revolution," observed Alain parentheti- 
 cally, "made that precaution unavailing. 
 
 "The young master of requests, being endowed 
 with the beauty of an angel, and with wonderful dex- 
 terity in all forms of bodily exercise, possessed the 
 gift of seduction. You will readily believe therefore 
 that Mademoiselle de Champignelles fell very deeply 
 in love with her husband. The old man, being 
 extremely pleased with the auspicious beginning of 
 their married life, and believing that his son had 
 reformed, himself sent the newly-wedded pair to 
 Paris. This happened early in 1788. There was 
 almost a year of happiness. Madame de la Chanterie 
 enjoyed all the little delicate attentions that a man 
 overflowing with love can lavish upon a woman 
 whom he loves. Short as it was, the honeymoon 
 left its mark on that noble and unfortunate woman's 
 heart. In those days, you know, mothers used to 
 nurse their children themselves, and Madame had a 
 daughter. That period, during which a wife should 
 be the object of redoubled tenderness, was on the 
 contrary the beginning of shocking misery. The 
 master of requests was compelled to sell ail the
 
 158 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 property he could dispose of, to pay old debts that he 
 had not confessed, and new gambling debts. Then 
 the National Assembly soon decreed the dissolution 
 of the Grand Council and the Parliament, and the 
 abolition of all the judicial offices, which had been 
 bought at so high a price. The young household, 
 increased by a daughter, was thus left without other 
 resources than the income of the entailed property 
 and the dowry settled upon Madame de la Chanterie. 
 In twenty months from her marriage that lovely 
 woman, at the age of seventeen and a half, was 
 reduced to the necessity of working with her hands, 
 in the obscure quarter to which she withdrew, in 
 order to support herself and the child she was nurs- 
 ing. She was entirely deserted by her husband, 
 who fell, step by step, into the society of creatures 
 of the lowest order. Madame never reproached her 
 husband, she never claimed to have been wronged 
 in any way. She has told us that, during those evil 
 days, she prayed to God for her dear Henri 
 
 "The villain's name was Henri," observed Mon- 
 sieur Alain; "it is a name never to'be uttered before 
 her, and so is Henriette. I resume. 
 
 "Never leaving her little room on Rue de la 
 Corderie-du-Temple, except to go out for provisions 
 or for her work, Madame de la Chanterie succeeded 
 in making both ends meet, thanks to a hundred 
 francs per month, which her father-in-law, deeply 
 touched by her courage, sent to her. Nevertheless, 
 realizing that that source of supply might fail her, 
 the poor young wife had adopted the laborious trade
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 159 
 
 of stay-maker, and worked for a famous dress- 
 maker. In due time the old contractor died, and 
 his inheritance was devoured by his son, by favor 
 of the laws overthrowing the monarchy. The 
 former master of requests, having become one of 
 the most bloodthirsty presidents of the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal, was the terror of all Normandie 
 and was enabled to gratify all his evil passions. 
 Imprisoned in his turn at the time of the fall of 
 Robespierre, the universal execration of his depart- 
 ment marked him out for certain death. Madame 
 de la Chanterie learned by a farewell letter the fate 
 that awaited her husband. Having placed her 
 little daughter in charge of a neighbor, she betook 
 herself immediately to the town where the wretch 
 was confined, armed with a few louis which com- 
 prised her whole fortune; those louis enabled her to 
 gain access to him in prison. She succeeded in 
 rescuing her husband by dressing him in her clothes, 
 a method almost identical with that which served 
 Madame de la Valette so well at a later period. 
 She was sentenced to death, but a feeling of shame 
 prevented them from taking their revenge in that 
 way, and the tribunal formerly presided over by 
 her husband secretly facilitated her release from 
 prison. She returned to Paris on foot, penniless, 
 sleeping in farmhouses and often fed by charity." 
 
 "My God!" cried Godefroid. 
 
 "Wait!" continued the good man, "that is noth- 
 ing. In eight years the poor woman saw her 
 husband three times. The first time monsieur
 
 160 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 remained twice twenty-four hours in his wife's 
 modest lodging and took all her money, over- 
 whelming her with tokens of affection and making 
 her believe in his complete conversion. 
 
 " 'I was powerless/ she said, 'against a man for 
 whom I prayed every day and who filled my mind 
 to the exclusion of everything else.' 
 
 ''The second time Monsieur de la Chanterie 
 appeared in a dying condition, and with such a 
 disease! She nursed him and saved his life; then 
 she tried to lead him back to decent sentiments and 
 a decent mode of life. After promising everything 
 that that angel asked of him, the revolutionist 
 plunged once more into horrible excesses, and 
 escaped the inquisition of the police authorities only 
 by taking refuge with his wife, where he died in 
 safety 
 
 "Oh! that is nothing," cried the good man, 
 remarking the amazement depicted on Godefroid's 
 face. "No one in the circle in which the man lived 
 knew that he was married. Two years after the 
 vile creature's death, Madame de la Chanterie 
 learned that there existed a second Madame de la 
 Chanterie, a widow like herself, and like herself 
 destitute. The bigamist had found two angels 
 incapable of betraying him. 
 
 "About 1803," continued Monsieur Alain after a 
 pause, "Monsieur de Boisfrelon, Madame de la 
 Chanterie's uncle, having been struck off the list of 
 'emigr'es, came to Paris and delivered to her two 
 hundred thousand francs which the old contractor
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 161 
 
 had placed in his hands long before, with instructions 
 to keep it for his niece's children. He persuaded 
 the widow to return to Normandie, where she 
 finished her daughter's education, and, still acting 
 on the former magistrate's advice, purchased a 
 patrimonial estate on excellent terms." 
 
 "Ah!" cried Godefroid. 
 
 "That is nothing," said Goodman Alain, "we 
 haven't arrived at the hurricanes yet. I resume. 
 In 1807, after four years of repose, Madame de la 
 Chanterie married her only daughter to a gentleman, 
 whose antecedents, religious principles and wealth 
 afforded guaranties of every sort; a man who, as 
 the popular saying went, was the darling of the best 
 society of the chief town in the prefecture where 
 Madame and her daughter passed the winter. 
 Observe that that society consisted of seven or 
 eight families numbered among the exalted nobility 
 of France, the D'Esgrignons, the Troisvilles, the 
 Casterans, the Nouatres, etc. After eighteen 
 months, that man left his wife and disappeared in 
 Paris, where he changed his name. Madame de la 
 Chanterie was unable to learn the causes of that 
 separation except by the bright glare of the lightning, 
 in the midst of the tempest. Her daughter, who 
 had been educated with the most painstaking care 
 in the purest religious sentiments, maintained abso- 
 lute silence concerning that event. Her lack of 
 confidence made a deep impression upon Madame 
 de la Chanterie. On several previous occasions 
 she had noticed in her daughter some traces of the
 
 162 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 father's adventurous character, but emphasized by 
 almost masculine decision. Her husband went 
 away with her full permission, leaving his affairs in 
 pitiable shape. To this day Madame de la Chanterie 
 has not recovered from her surprise at that catastro- 
 phe, which no human power could have remedied. 
 The people whom she prudently consulted had all 
 said that the young man's fortune was unencumbered 
 and definitely fixed, invested in unmortgaged real 
 estate; whereas the property had been, for ten 
 years, pledged for more than its value. So the 
 real estate was sold, and the unfortunate bride, 
 reduced to her own resources, returned to her 
 mother. Madame de la Chanterie learned later that 
 the man had been upheld by the most respectable 
 men in the province, in the interest of their own 
 claims against him; for the scoundrel owed them all 
 more or less. So Madame de la Chanterie had been 
 looked upon as a suitable victim from her first arrival 
 in the province. However, there were other moving 
 causes of that disaster, which will be made clear to 
 you by a confidential document which was laid 
 before the Emperor. The fellow had, moreover, 
 won the good-will of the royalist leaders in the 
 department by his devotion to the royal cause during 
 the tempestuous days of the Revolution. One of the 
 most active emissaries of Louis XVIII., he had had 
 a hand in all the conspiracies since 1793, extricating 
 himself so cunningly, with such adroitness, that he 
 eventually aroused the suspicion of his co-workers. 
 Having been removed by Louis XVIII. from his offices,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 163 
 
 and not being consulted in any subsequent affairs, 
 he returned to his estates, which had even then 
 been impaired for a long while. These antecedents, 
 then little known for those who were admitted to 
 the secrets of the royal closet held their peace con- 
 cerning such a dangerous co-worker made him 
 the object of a sort of cult in a town devoted to the 
 Bourbons, where the most barbarous methods 
 adopted by the Chouans were looked upon as honor- 
 able warfare. The D'Esgrignons, the Casterans, 
 the Chevalier de Valois, in a word, the aristocracy 
 and the church opened their arms to the royalist 
 diplomat and took him in their lap. Their inclination 
 to patronize him was confirmed by the anxiety of 
 his creditors to be paid. The miserable wretch, a 
 fitting successor to the late De la Chanterie, suc- 
 ceeded in holding himself in check for three years, 
 he affected the most profound piety and imposed 
 silence on his vices. During the first months that 
 he and his young wife lived together, he exerted 
 some influence over her; he tried to corrupt her with 
 his doctrines if atheism can be called a doctrine 
 and by the jesting tone in which he spoke of the 
 most sacred things. This backstairs diplomatist, on 
 his return to the province, formed a close intimacy 
 with a young man who was swallowed up in debt 
 like himself, but whose frankness and courage 
 were as noteworthy as the other's hypocrisy and 
 cowardice. This guest, whose charming manners, 
 whose genial nature and adventurous life were well 
 adapted to influence a young woman, was like a
 
 164 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 tool in the husband's hands, and he used him to 
 support his abominable theories. The girl never let 
 her mother suspect the pit into which chance had 
 thrown her, for mere human forethought seems 
 nothing at all when we think of the minute precau- 
 tions taken by Madame de la Chanterie in arranging 
 for the marriage of her only daughter. This last 
 blow, in a life so pure, so devout, so religious as 
 that of a woman afflicted by such a succession of 
 misfortunes, aroused in Madame de la Chanterie a 
 distrust of herself, which kept her the more aloof 
 from her daughter, because the latter, in exchange 
 for her evil fortune, demanded almost absolute 
 freedom, domineered over her mother and even 
 spoke harshly to her sometimes. Wounded thus in 
 all her affections, betrayed in her devoted love for 
 her husband, to whom she had sacrificed her happi- 
 ness, her fortune and her life, without a murmur; 
 deceived in the exclusively religious education she 
 had given her daughter, deceived by society itself 
 in the affair of the marriage, and failing to obtain 
 justice in the heart in which she had sown none but 
 worthy sentiments, she clung more closely to God, 
 whose hand was so heavy upon her. The quasi- 
 nun went to church every morning, she inflicted the 
 harshest monastic penances upon herself and saved 
 money in order to assist the poor. 
 
 "Can you imagine a more saintlike, more griev- 
 ously afflicted life than that noble woman's thus far, 
 so patient in misfortune, so brave in danger, and 
 always so Christlike?" said the good man, glancing
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 165 
 
 at the marveling Godefroid. "You know Madame, 
 you know whether she lacks good sense, sound 
 judgment, reflection; she has all those qualities in 
 the highest degree. Very good; those misfortunes, 
 which would be sufficient to lead one to say of a 
 life that it surpasses all others in hardship, are as 
 nothing compared to what God had in store for that 
 woman. Let us now devote our attention exclu- 
 sively to Madame de la Chanterie's daughter," said 
 the good man, resuming his narrative. 
 
 "At eighteen, Mademoiselle de la Chanterie's age 
 when she was married, she was a girl of exceedingly 
 delicate complexion, dark, with brilliant coloring, 
 slender and sweetly pretty. Above a brow of noble 
 outline grew a profusion of lovely black hair, in 
 harmony with her sparkling, brown eyes. Her 
 somewhat delicate features were misleading as to 
 her real character and her masculine firmness. She 
 had small hands, small feet, and a suggestion of 
 fragility in her whole person that excluded any idea 
 of strength or vivacity. Having always lived with 
 her mother, she was as innocent as a child in the 
 matter of morals and remarkably devout. Like 
 Madame de la Chanterie, she was a fanatical partisan 
 of the Bourbons, an enemy of the French Revolution, 
 and acknowledged the supremacy of Napoleon only 
 as a scourge that Providence inflicted upon France 
 in punishment for the crimes of 1793. The harmony 
 in the matter of political opinions between the 
 mother-in-law and son-in-law was, as it always is 
 under such circumstances, a decisive argument in
 
 166 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 favor of the marriage, which, moreover, all the 
 aristocracy of the province were interested in bring- 
 ing about. The wretch's chosen friend had com- 
 manded a party of Chouans in the uprising of 1799. 
 It seems that the baron Madame de la Chanterie's 
 son-in-law was a baron had no other purpose in 
 encouraging an attachment between his wife and 
 his friend, than to avail himself of it to demand 
 assistance and succor from them. Although over- 
 whelmed with debts and without apparent means of 
 existence, the young adventurer lived very well, 
 and could easily lend a helping hand to the organizer 
 of royalist conspiracies. 
 
 "I must say a few words here concerning an 
 association that was causing a great deal of excite- 
 ment at that time," said Monsieur Alain, interrupting 
 his narrative. "I refer to the burners. Every 
 province in the West was more or less afflicted by 
 those marauders, whose object was not so much 
 plunder as a renewal of the royalist war. They 
 made the most, it was said, of the great number of 
 persons dissatisfied with the law relating to con- 
 scription, which was executed then, as you know, 
 with a harshness that amounted to an abuse. 
 Between Mortagne and Rennes, and even beyond, 
 as far as the banks of the Loire, there were 
 nocturnal depredations which, in that part of Nor- 
 mandie, bore most heavily on those who were in 
 possession of estates bought of the nation. Those 
 bands caused profound alarm throughout the country 
 districts. I shall not put the fact too strongly if I
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 167 
 
 say that, in certain departments, the action of the 
 authorities was long paralyzed. These last echoes 
 of the civil war did not make so much noise as you 
 might think, accustomed as we are to-day to the 
 horrible publicity given by the press to the most 
 trifling political or private trials. The system fol- 
 lowed by the imperial government was that of all 
 absolute governments. The censorship permitted 
 the publication of nothing on political subjects, 
 except accomplished facts, and even those were 
 travestied. If you would take the trouble to run 
 over the files of the Moniteur and the other news- 
 papers then in existence, even those of the West, 
 you would not find a word of four or five criminal 
 trials which cost sixty or eighty brigands their lives. 
 That name of brigands, given during the Revolu- 
 tionary epoch to the Vendeans, the Chouans and all 
 those who took up arms for the Bourbons, was 
 retained judicially under the Empire for the royalist 
 victims of isolated conspiracies. In the eyes of 
 some passionate royalists, the Emperor and his 
 government were the enemy, everything that could 
 be taken from him seemed to be lawful prize. I 
 explain these opinions to you without undertaking 
 to justify them, and I resume. 
 
 "Now," he said, after one of the pauses necessary 
 in long narratives, "given these royalists ruined by 
 the civil war of 1793 and swayed by violent passions; 
 given some exceptional characters consumed by 
 poverty, like Madame de la Chanterie's son-in-law 
 and his friend the former Chouan leader, you can
 
 168 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 understand how they could make up their minds 
 to commit, in their own private interest, acts of 
 brigandage, which their political opinions justified, 
 against the imperial government, to the profit of the 
 good cause. The young Chouan therefore turned 
 his attention to rekindling the embers of Chouan- 
 nerie, in order to be ready to act at the opportune 
 moment. About that time the Emperor was in a 
 terribly critical position, being shut up in the island 
 of Lobau and apparently on the point of going down 
 before the simultaneous attack of England and 
 Austria. The victory of Wagram rendered the con- 
 spiracy that had been set on foot in the interior 
 practically harmless. The hope of rekindling civil 
 war in Bretagne, Vendee and a part of Normandie 
 coincided by a fatal chance with the upsetting of the 
 baron's affairs; he flattered himself with the prospect 
 of organizing an expedition, the profits of which 
 would be applied exclusively to saving his own 
 estates. With great nobility of feeling, his wife 
 and his friend refused to divert for any private 
 purposes the sums taken by force and arms from 
 the coffers of the State and intended for the pay of 
 the discontented spirits and the Chouans, and for 
 procuring arms and ammunition in anticipation of an 
 uprising. When, after several acrimonious disputes, 
 the young Chouan, supported by the wife, had 
 positively refused to reserve for the husband a 
 hundred thousand francs in crowns, which sum they 
 were expecting to take from the funds in the hands 
 of one of the receivers-general in the West, for the
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 169 
 
 benefit of the royal army, the baron disappeared to 
 avoid the hot pursuit of several warrants for his 
 arrest. The creditors attempted to levy on the 
 wife's property, and the miserable wretch had 
 dried up the spring of the sentiment that impels a 
 wife to sacrifice herself for her husband. That is 
 what poor Madame de la Chanterie knew nothing 
 about, but it is nothing to the plot concealed behind 
 this preliminary explanation. 
 
 "It is too late to-night," said the good man after 
 glancing at his little clock, "it would take too long if 
 I should undertake to tell you the rest of the story. 
 My friend, old Bordin, who became illustrious in the 
 annals of the royalist party through his conduct of 
 the famous Simeuse trial, and who defended the so- 
 called burners of Mortagne, lent me, at the time I 
 came here to live, two documents which I have kept, 
 for he died shortly after. You will find the facts much 
 more concisely stated in them than I could tell them 
 to you. They are so numerous that I should lose my- 
 self in the details, and it would take me more than two 
 hours; whereas, in those papers you will have them 
 all summarized. To-morrow morning I will tell you the 
 rest of the story so far as Madame de la Chanterie is 
 concerned, for you will be so well informed by what 
 you will have read that I shall be able to finish in a 
 few words." The good man handed several papers 
 yellowed by lapse of time to Godefroid, who, after 
 wishing his neighbor good-night, withdrew to his 
 own room, where, before retiring, he read the two 
 documents which follow:
 
 "INDICTMENT 
 
 "Special Criminal Court for the Department of the 
 Orne 
 
 "The procureur-general of the Imperial Court at 
 Caen, being instructed to appear in his official 
 capacity at the special criminal court created by 
 imperial decree under date of September, 1809, and 
 sitting at Alencon, presents to the court the following 
 facts which appear from the preliminary procedure: 
 
 "A conspiracy of brigands, conceived with much 
 deliberation and of extraordinary extent, which is 
 connected with a scheme for an uprising throughout 
 the departments of the West, made itself manifest 
 in divers assaults upon citizens and depredations 
 upon their property, but notably by the attack with 
 force and arms upon a vehicle engaged in trans- 
 porting funds from the receiver-general at Caen, for 
 account of the State, on the day of May, 180-, 
 and the robbery thereof. That crime, which recalls 
 deplorable memories of a civil war happily at an 
 end, was accompanied by flagitious circumstances 
 no longer justified by the heat of passion. 
 
 "From its origin to its results, the plot is a com- 
 plicated one, its details are numerous: the investi- 
 gation lasted more than a year; but the evidence, 
 (171)
 
 172 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 following close upon the heels of the crime, throws 
 a bright light upon its preparation, its execution and 
 its consequences. 
 
 "The idea of the conspiracy is chargeable to one 
 Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph-Rifoel, who styles 
 himself Chevalier du Vissard, born at Vissard in 
 the commune of Saint-Mexme, near Ernee, a former 
 leader of rebels. 
 
 "This culprit, who was pardoned by His Majesty 
 the Emperor and King at the time of the final 
 pacification, and who has acknowledged the sover- 
 eign's magnanimity only by fresh crimes, has 
 heretofore, at the time the last punishments were 
 inflicted, suffered the penalty merited by so many 
 offences; but it is necessary to recall some of his 
 acts, for he exerted great influence over the culprits 
 at present before the court, and he is connected 
 with every detail of the trial. 
 
 "This dangerous agitator, disguised, according to 
 the custom among the rebels, under the name of 
 Pierrot, wandered through the departments of the 
 West, gathering up the elements of a new outbreak; 
 but his most secure shelter was the chateau of 
 Saint-Savin, the residence of one Dame Lechantre 
 and her daughter, Dame Bryond, and situated in 
 the commune of Saint-Savin and arrondissement of 
 Mortagne. That strategic point is reminiscent of 
 the most terrible incidents of the rebellion of 1799. 
 There it was that the courier was murdered, his 
 vehicle robbed by a band of brigands under the 
 command of a woman, assisted by the too famous
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 173 
 
 Marche-a-Terre. Thus it will be seen that brigand- 
 age is, in some sort, endemic in the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 "An intimacy which we will not attempt to 
 describe had existed for more than a year between 
 Dame Bryond and the said Rifoe'I. 
 
 "It was in that commune that an interview took 
 place, in April 1808, between the said Rifoe'I and 
 Boislaurier, one of the principal leaders and known 
 by the name of Auguste in the deplorable rebellions 
 of the West; it is he whose mind directed the affair 
 now before the court. 
 
 "The obscure point of the relations between these 
 two leaders, being triumphantly established by 
 numerous witnesses, has furthermore the authority 
 of res judkata, by virtue of the conviction of the 
 said Rifoe'I. 
 
 "The said Boislaurier made arrangements at that 
 interview with the said Rifoe'I to act in concert with 
 him. 
 
 "These two, and they alone at first, communi- 
 cated to each other their baleful schemes, inspired 
 by the absence of His Royal and Imperial Majesty, 
 who was then at the head of his armies in Spain. 
 At that interview they seem to have determined 
 upon the abduction of the sums received for taxes 
 by the State as the fundamental base of their 
 operations. 
 
 "Some time later one Dubut, of Caen, despatches 
 an emissary to the chateau of Saint-Savin, one 
 Hiley, alias Le Laboureur, long known as a robber
 
 174 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 of diligences, to furnish information concerning the 
 men who could be trusted. 
 
 "Thus -it was that, through the said Hiley's 
 intervention, the conspirators procured at the outset 
 the co-operation of one Herbomez, alias General- 
 Hardi, an ex-rebel of the same stamp as Rifoe'l and 
 like him false to the terms of the amnesty. 
 
 "The said Herbomez and Hiley thereupon enlisted 
 in the neighboring communes seven bandits whom 
 we must hasten to introduce, and who are: 
 
 "ist. Jean Cibot, called Pille-Miche, one of the 
 boldest brigands of the band organized by Montauran 
 in the year VII., one of the authors of the attack 
 upon and death of the courier of Mortagne; 
 
 "2d. Frangois Lisieux, otherwise called Le Grand- 
 Fils, a malcontent conscript of the department of 
 Mayenne; 
 
 "3d. Charles Grenier, called Fleur-de-Gent, 
 deserter from the 6gth demi-brigade; 
 
 "4th. Gabriel Bruce, called Gros-Jean, one of 
 the most savage Chouans of the Fontaine division; 
 
 "5th. Jacques Horeau, called Le Stuart, ex-lieu- 
 tenant of the same demi-brigade, and one of the 
 trusted friends of Tinteniac, well known for his 
 participation in the Quiberon expedition; 
 
 "6th. Marie-Anne Cabot, called Lajeunesse, a 
 former huntsman in the employ of Sieur Carol of 
 Alencon; 
 
 "7th. Louis Minard, rebel. 
 
 "These recruits were quartered in three different 
 communes in the houses of one Binet, one Melin
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 175 
 
 and one Laraviniere, keepers of wineshops or inns, 
 and all devoted to Rifoe'l. 
 
 "The necessary weapons were immediately 
 furnished by Sieur Jean-Francois Leveille, notary, 
 an incorrigible correspondent of the brigands, the 
 intermediary between them and several leaders in 
 hiding; and by one Felix Courceuil, called Le Con- 
 fesseur, formerly a surgeon in the rebel armies in 
 La Vendee both of Alencon. 
 
 "Eleven muskets were hidden in the house owned 
 by Sieur Bryond in the suburbs of Alencon, without 
 his knowledge; for he was then living on his country 
 estate between Alencon and Mortagne. 
 
 "When Sieur Bryond left his wife, abandoning 
 her to her own devices on the fatal path she had 
 chosen to follow, those muskets were mysteriously 
 removed from the house and taken by Dame Bryond 
 in her carriage to the chateau of Saint-Savin. 
 
 "Then it was that the acts of brigandage took 
 place in the department of the Orne and the adjacent 
 departments, taking the authorities by surprise no 
 more completely than the inhabitants of those dis- 
 tricts which have been so long at peace, and demon- 
 strating that these odious foes of the government 
 and of the French Empire had been admitted to the 
 secret of the coalition of 1809, by their correspond- 
 ents in foreign countries. 
 
 "The said notary, Leveille, Dame Bryond, Dubut 
 of Caen, Herbomez of Mayenne, Boislaurier of Le 
 Mans, and Rifoe'l, were therefore the leaders of the 
 association, to which the culprits already executed
 
 176 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 by virtue of the judgment against them in conjunc- 
 tion with Rifoe'l gave in their adhesion, also those 
 who are made defendants in the present indictment 
 and several others who have escaped the action of 
 the public vengeance by flight or because of the 
 silence of their accomplices. 
 
 "It was the said Dubut who, having his domicile 
 near Caen, notified the said Leveille, notary, of the 
 despatch of the funds. Thereafter Dubut makes 
 several journeys from Caen to Mortagne, and 
 Leveille also is frequently seen on the roads. 
 
 "It should be noted at this point that, at the 
 time the muskets were removed, Leveille, who met 
 the said Bruce, Grenier and Cibot in Melin's house, 
 having found them arranging the muskets under a 
 lean-to inside, himself assisted in the operation. 
 
 "A general rendezvous was appointed at the 
 Ecu de France hotel at Mortagne. All the defendants 
 assembled there under different disguises. Then it 
 was that Leveille, Dame Bryond, Dubut, Herbomez, 
 Boislaurier and Hiley, the most adroit of the second- 
 ary conspirators, as Cibot is the boldest, assured 
 themselves of the co-operation of one Vauthier, 
 called Vieux-Che'ne, a hostler at the hotel, formerly 
 a servant in the employ of the famous Longuy. 
 Vauthier consented to notify Dame Bryond when 
 the tax-collector's carriage passed, as it ordinarily 
 stopped at the hotel. 
 
 "The moment soon arrived for assembling the 
 enlisted brigands, who had been scattered about in 
 several houses, some in one commune, some in
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 177 
 
 another, under the management of Courceuil and 
 Leveille. The junction was effected under the 
 auspices of Dame Bryond, who furnished the brig- 
 ands with a new place of retreat in an uninhabited 
 wing of the chateau of Saint-Savin, a few leagues 
 from Mortagne, where she had lived with her mother 
 since her separation from her husband. The brig- 
 ands, Hiley at their head, take up their quarters 
 there and remain there several days. Dame 
 Bryond, assisted by one Godard, her maid, gives 
 her personal attention to the preparation of every- 
 thing necessary for boarding and lodging such guests. 
 To that end she orders bundles of hay carried to 
 the brigands, she visits them in the shelter with 
 which she provided them and goes back and forth 
 several times with Leveille. The provisions and 
 supplies are carried to them under the direction and 
 by the efforts of Courceuil, who receives his orders 
 from Rifoe'l and Boislaurier. 
 
 "The main expedition takes shape, the armament 
 is completed; the brigands leave their hiding-place 
 at Saint-Savin; they operate by night, awaiting the 
 passage of the tax-collector, and the province is 
 alarmed by their repeated aggressions. 
 
 "It is beyond question that the offences committed 
 at La Sartiniere, at Vonay, at the chateau of Saint- 
 Seny were committed by this band, whose audacity 
 equals their villainy, and who have succeeded in 
 inspiring such terror that their victims all hold their 
 peace, so that the authorities are restricted to pre- 
 sumptions.
 
 178 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "But, while compelling contributions from the 
 purchasers of national property, these brigands 
 carefully explored the wood of Chesnay, selected 
 as the theatre of their crimes. 
 
 "The village of Louvigny is not far away. There 
 is a public-house in that village kept by the brothers 
 Chaussard, former keepers on the Troisville estate, 
 which was to serve as the final rendezvous of the 
 brigands. The two brothers knew in advance the 
 part they had to play; Courceuil and Boislaurier had 
 long before made overtures to them to rekindle their 
 hatred against the government of our august emperor, 
 informing them that, among the guests who would 
 come to their house, would be certain men of their 
 acquaintance, the redoubtable Hiley and the no less 
 redoubtable Cibot. 
 
 "On the 6th the seven bandits, under the guid- 
 ance of Hiley, arrive at the brothers Chaussard's 
 hostelry, and pass two days there. On the 8th 
 their leader takes them away again, saying that 
 they propose to march about three leagues, and he 
 orders the two brothers to furnish them with sup- 
 plies, which are taken to a fork in the road not far 
 from the village. Hiley returns alone to the inn 
 and sleeps there. 
 
 "Two mounted men, presumably Dame Bryond 
 and Rifoe'l, for it is asserted that that lady accom- 
 panied Rifoe'l on his expedition, in the saddle and 
 disguised as a man, arrive during the evening and 
 converse with Hiley. 
 
 "The following day Hiley writes a letter to
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 179 
 
 Leveille the notary, which is delivered by one of 
 the brothers Chaussard, who returns at once with 
 a reply. 
 
 "Two hours later Dame Bryond and Rifoe'l arrive 
 on horseback and converse with Hiley. 
 
 "The result of all these conferences, of all this 
 going and coming, is that they must have an axe to 
 break open the chests. The notary escorts Dame 
 Bryond to Saint-Savin and they search in vain for 
 an axe there. The notary returns, meets Hiley 
 half way and informs him that they have no axe. 
 
 "Hiley returns to the inn, orders supper for ten 
 persons, and introduces the seven brigands, now all 
 armed. Hiley orders them to stack their arms in 
 military fashion. They take their seats at the table, 
 eat their supper in haste, and Hiley asks to be sup- 
 plied with provisions in abundance to take away 
 with them. Then he takes the elder Chaussard 
 apart and asks him for an axe. The innkeeper,, 
 greatly surprised if we are to believe what he says, 
 refuses to furnish it. Courceuil and Boislaurier 
 arrive; the night slips away and the three men pass 
 the time pacing the floor and talking over their 
 schemes. Courceuil, alias Le Confesseur, the most 
 crafty of all the brigands, obtains possession of an 
 axe; and about two o'clock in the morning they all 
 leave the house by different exits. 
 
 "Moments are becoming precious, for the execu- 
 tion of the crime was appointed for that fatal day. 
 Hiley, Courceuil, Boislaurier bring up their forces 
 and station them. Hiley goes into ambush, with
 
 180 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Minard, Cabot and Bruce, at the right of Chesnay 
 wood. Boislaurier, Grenier and Horeau take up 
 their positions in the centre. Courceuil, Herbomez 
 and Lisieux stand on the edge of the wood. All 
 these stations are indicated on the geometrical plan 
 prepared by the engineer of the registry office and 
 annexed to the papers. 
 
 "Meanwhile the carrier's wagon had left Mortagne 
 at one o'clock in the morning, driven by one Rous- 
 seau, whose guilty knowledge seems so evident 
 from the circumstances, that his arrest seemed 
 essential. The vehicle, moving slowly, was due to 
 reach Chesnay wood about three o'clock. 
 
 "A single gendarme acted as escort; they were 
 to breakfast at Donnery. Three passengers walked 
 with the gendarme from time to time. 
 
 "The driver, who had walked very slowly with 
 them, when he reached the bridge of Chesnay, at 
 the beginning of the wood of that name, urges his 
 horses with an energy and animation that attract 
 attention, and turns into a crossroad called the 
 Senzey road. The vehicle passes from sight, its 
 course being indicated only by the tinkling of the 
 bells; the gendarme and the passengers quicken 
 their pace to overtake it. They hear the words: 
 'Stop there, villains!' followed by four musket shots. 
 
 "The gendarme, not being wounded, draws his 
 sabre and runs in the direction he supposes the 
 wagon to have taken. He is stopped by four armed 
 men who fire upon him; his ardor saves his life, for 
 he darts back to bid one of the young passengers
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 181 
 
 go to give the alarm at Chesnay; but two brigands 
 rush upon him and take aim at him; he is compelled 
 to fall back a few steps, and thereupon receives in 
 the left armpit, as he is trying to watch the wood, a 
 bullet that has broken his arm; he falls and sud- 
 denly finds himself hors de combat. 
 
 "The shouts and the firing have been heard at 
 Donnery. The brigadier and one of the gendarmes 
 of that village hurry to the spot; a sustained fire 
 attracts them to the opposite side of the wood from 
 that where the pillage is in progress. The gendarme 
 tries to frighten the brigands by shouting in such a 
 way as to indicate the arrival of fictitious reinforce- 
 ments. He cries: 
 
 " 'Forward! This way, the first platoon! We have 
 them! The second platoon this way!' 
 
 "The brigands, in reply, shout: 
 
 " 'To arms! This way, comrades! More men, 
 quick!' 
 
 "The rattle of the musketry prevents the brigadier 
 from hearing the cries of the wounded gendarme, or 
 from assisting in the similar manoeuvre by which 
 the other gendarme holds the brigands in check; but 
 he can distinguish a noise nearer at hand, the 
 shattering and breaking open of the money-chests. 
 He advances in that direction; four armed bandits 
 detain him. 
 
 "'Surrender, villains!' he cries. 
 
 "They retort: 
 
 " 'Come no nearer or you're a dead man!' 
 
 "The brigadier rides forward, two shots are fired,
 
 182 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 and he is wounded; a bullet passes through his left 
 leg and enters his horse's side. The gallant officer, 
 bathed in his own blood, is forced to abandon the 
 unequal combat; he cries, but in vain: 
 
 " 'Help! The brigands are in Chesnay wood!' 
 "The brigands, remaining masters of the field, 
 thanks to their number, searched the wagon, which 
 was driven into a ravine for that purpose. They 
 covered the driver's head as a blind. They broke 
 open the chests, the ground was strewn with bags 
 of money. The horses were unharnessed and the 
 money loaded upon the horses. They scorned three 
 thousand francs in copper, and carried away the 
 sum of one hundred and three thousand francs upon 
 four horses. They went in the direction of the 
 hamlet of Menneville, which adjoins the village of 
 Saint-Savin. The band with their booty stopped 
 at an isolated house belonging to the brothers Chaus- 
 sard and occupied by their uncle, one Bourget, who 
 was privy to the plot from the beginning. That old 
 man, assisted by his wife, welcomes the brigands, 
 enjoins silence upon them, unloads the money, and 
 goes to draw liquor for them to drink. The woman 
 does sentry duty in the direction of the chateau. 
 The old man unharnesses the horses, leads them 
 back to the wood, restores them to the driver, sets 
 free two of the passengers who had been bound, as 
 had the obliging driver. Having taken a brief rest 
 the bandits resume their march. Courceuil, Hiley, 
 Boislaurier pass their accomplices in review; and, 
 after bestowing a very moderate compensation upon
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 183 
 
 each of them, the leaders scatter, each going his 
 own way. 
 
 "Upon reaching a spot called Champ-Landry, the 
 miscreants, obeying the voice which impels all such 
 wretches to plunge headlong into the contradictions 
 and false reckonings of crime, throw their muskets 
 into a field of grain. That action, performed by 
 common consent, was the last indication of their 
 mutual undertaking. Terror-stricken by the impu- 
 dence of their wicked deed and by its very success, 
 they disperse. 
 
 "The robbery once accomplished with the accom- 
 paniments of murder and assault with arms, the scene 
 changes and other actors appear in connection with 
 the proceeds of the robbery and its disposition. 
 
 "Rifoe'l, in hiding in Paris, whence his hand has 
 guided every thread of the plot, transmits to Leveille 
 an order to send him fifty thousand francs as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 "Courceuil, who was familiar with all the details 
 of the crime, had already sent Hiley to inform 
 Leveille of their success and of his arrival at Mor- 
 tagne. Leveille goes thither. 
 
 "Vauthier, upon whose fidelity they believed that 
 they could rely, undertakes to go to the Chaussards' 
 uncle; he arrives at the house, the old man tells 
 him that he must apply to his nephews, who have 
 delivered large sums to Dame Bryond. He bids 
 him wait on the road, however, and gives him a bag 
 containing twelve hundred francs, which Vauthier 
 carries to Dame Lechantre for her daughter.
 
 1 84 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "At the urgent request of Leveille, Vauthier 
 returns to Bourget, who, on this occasion, sends 
 him directly to his nephews. The elder Chaussard 
 leads Vauthier into the woods, points out a certain 
 tree to him, and at its foot he finds a bag containing 
 one thousand francs buried. Subsequently Leveille, 
 Hiley, Vauthier, all make journeys to the wood, and 
 every time a trifling sum, compared to the total 
 amount stolen, is given them. 
 
 "Madame Lechantre receives these sums at Mor- 
 tagne, and, upon receipt of a letter of instruction 
 from her daughter, transports them to Saint-Savin, 
 whither Dame Bryond had returned. 
 
 "This is not the moment to inquire whether the 
 woman Lechantre had prior knowledge of the con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 "It is sufficient for the present to observe that 
 she leaves Mortagne to go to Saint-Savin on the day 
 preceding the execution of the crime and bring her 
 daughter away; that they meet after accomplishing 
 half the distance between these points, and return 
 to Mortagne; that, on the day following, the notary, 
 advised by Hiley, goes from Alencon to Mortagne, 
 immediately calls upon them and induces them, later, 
 to carry the funds obtained with such difficulty from 
 the brothers Chaussard and Bourget to a house at 
 Alencon, concerning which we shall soon have some- 
 thing to say, the house of Sieur Pannier, a tradesman. 
 
 "Dame Lechantre writes to the keeper at Saint- 
 Savin to come to Mortagne and drive herself and her 
 daughter toward Alencon by an unfrequented road.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 185 
 
 "The money, amounting to twenty thousand 
 francs in all, is loaded at night, and the Godard girl 
 assists in the loading. 
 
 "The notary had marked out the road to be 
 followed. They reached the inn kept by one of the 
 faithful, one Louis Chargegrain, in the commune 
 of Littray. Despite the precautions taken by 
 the notary, who rode out to meet the carriage, 
 there were witnesses present, who saw the port- 
 manteaus and sacks containing the money taken 
 from the carriage. 
 
 "But, at the moment that Courceuil and Hiley, 
 disguised as women, upon a public square in Alen^on, 
 were consulting with Sieur Pannier, treasurer of the 
 rebels since 1794 and a devoted adherent of Rifoe'l, 
 as to the means of forwarding to Rifoe'l the sum he 
 requested, the terror caused by the first arrests and 
 by the investigation set on foot reached such a 
 point, that Dame Lechantre, becoming anxious, fled 
 in the night time from the inn where she was, tak- 
 ing her daughter with her by devious paths, and 
 took refuge in the secret hiding-places of the chateau 
 of Saint-Savin. The same fright seized upon the 
 other culprits. Courceuil, Boislaurier and his kins- 
 man Dubut changed two thousand francs in silver 
 crowns for gold at a money-changer's, and fled to 
 England by way of Bretagne. 
 
 "Upon their arrival at Saint-Savin, Dames Le- 
 chantre and Bryond learned of the arrests of Bourget, 
 the driver of the wagon, and the refractory con- 
 scripts.
 
 1 86 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "The magistrates, the gendarmerie, the authori- 
 ties were dealing such well-aimed blows that it 
 seemed urgently necessary to remove Dame Bryond 
 beyond the reach of judicial investigation, for she 
 was an object of devotion to all the miscreants, who 
 were fascinated by her. Therefore Dame Bryond 
 leaves Saint-Savin and conceals herself, first in 
 Alenc.on, where her faithful followers take counsel 
 together and succeed in concealing her in Pannier's 
 cellar. 
 
 "At this point, the affair takes on a different 
 aspect. 
 
 "After the arrest of Bourget and his wife, the 
 Chaussards refused to deliver any more of the 
 money, claiming that they had been betrayed. 
 That unexpected defection happened at the moment 
 when the most urgent need of money was felt by 
 all the conspirators, in order to assure their safety 
 if for no other purpose. Rifoe'l was thirsty for 
 money. Hiley, Cibot, Leveille began to distrust 
 the brothers Chaussard. 
 
 "At this point occurs a new incident, which calls 
 for rigorous treatment at the hands of the authorities. 
 
 "Two gendarmes detailed to discover Dame 
 Bryond's hiding-place succeed in making their way 
 into Pannier's house, they are present at a confer- 
 ence there; but these men, being unworthy of the 
 confidence of their superiors, instead of arresting 
 Dame Bryond, fall victims to her fascinations. These 
 unworthy officials, Ratel and Mallet by name, lavish 
 upon her demonstrations of the warmest interest,
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 187 
 
 and offer to escort her safely to the Chaussards, in 
 order that she may force them to disgorge. 
 
 "Dame Bryond sets out on horseback, disguised 
 in male attire, attended by Ratel, Mallet and the 
 Godard girl. She travels by night. She reaches 
 her destination; she has an animated interview, 
 alone, with one of the brothers Chaussard. She 
 had armed herself with a pistol, having determined 
 to blow out her accomplice's brains in case of 
 refusal; but he takes her into the woods, whence 
 she returns with a heavy bag. On her return she 
 finds in the bag copper coins and twelve sou pieces, 
 amounting to fifteen hundred francs. 
 
 "Thereupon it is proposed that all the conspirators 
 who can be gotten together make a descent on the 
 Chaussards, seize upon them and put them to the 
 torture. 
 
 "Pannier, upon learning of the failure of the 
 expedition, flies into a rage and indulges in dire 
 threats; and Dame Bryond, although threatening 
 him in return with RifoeTs wrath, is forced to fly. 
 
 "All these details are included in the confession 
 of Ratel. 
 
 "Mallet, touched by her plight, offers Dame 
 Bryond shelter. They all go to the forest of Trois- 
 ville to pass the night. Thence Mallet and Ratel, 
 accompanied by Hiley and Cibot, repair during the 
 night to the house of the brothers Chaussard; but 
 they learn that the two brothers have left the 
 province, and that the balance of the money is 
 certainly out of their reach.
 
 188 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "This was the last effort of the plotters to obtain 
 possession of the proceeds of the robbery. 
 
 "At this time it will be well to point out the 
 precise part played by each of the authors of this 
 crime. 
 
 "Dubut, Boislaurier, Gentil, Herbomez, Cour- 
 ceuil and Hiley are the principal offenders, some 
 plotting, others acting. 
 
 "Boislaurier, Dubut and Courceuil, all three of 
 whom are fugitives from justice, are accustomed to 
 rebellion, fomenters of trouble, implacable enemies 
 of Napoleon the Great, of his victories, of his 
 dynasty, of his government, of our new laws and 
 of the imperial constitution. 
 
 "Herbomez and Hiley have audaciously helped to 
 execute with their arms what their brains conceived. 
 
 "The guilt of the seven instruments of the crime, 
 to wit: Cibot, Lisieux, Grenier, Bruce, Horeau, 
 Cabot, Minard, is notorious; it is proved by the 
 confessions of those of them who are in the grasp 
 of the law, for Lisieux died during the preliminary 
 examination and Bruce is a fugitive. 
 
 "The conduct of Rousseau the driver is stamped 
 with guilty knowledge. His moderation on the road, 
 the precipitate speed to which he urged his horses 
 at the entrance to the forest, his persistence in 
 declaring that his head was covered, whereas, 
 according to the testimony of the passengers, the 
 leader of the brigands ordered his handkerchief to 
 be taken off and bade him identify them, all these 
 facts afford the strongest presumption of complicity.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 189 
 
 "Turning to Dame Bryond and the notary 
 Leveille, how could complicity be more continuous 
 and more clearly proven than theirs? They con- 
 stantly provided the means of committing the crime, 
 they knew all about it, they aided and abetted in it. 
 Leveille traveled hither and thither upon all sorts 
 of errands. Dame Bryond invented stratagem upon 
 stratagem; she risked everything, even her life, to 
 assure the recovery of the funds. She lends her 
 chateau, her carriage, she is in the plot from the 
 beginning; she did not deter the principal promoter, 
 when she might have exerted her guilty influence 
 to that end. She involved her maid, Godard. 
 Leveille was so deeply interested in the execution 
 of the scheme, that he tried to obtain the axe that 
 the brigands desired. 
 
 "The wife of Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, 
 Pannier, Dame Lechantre, Mallet and Ratel were 
 all participants in the crime in different degrees, as 
 were the innkeepers Melin, Binet, Laraviniere and 
 Chargegrain. 
 
 "Bourget died during the preliminary examination, 
 after making a confession which removes all doubt 
 as to the part taken by Vauthier and by Dame 
 Bryond; and, although he attempted to lighten the 
 burden of the charges against his wife and his 
 nephews the Chaussards, the motive of his reticence 
 regarding them is easily understood. 
 
 "But the Chaussards knowingly furnished aid and 
 comfort to the brigands, they saw them with arms 
 in their hands, they witnessed all their preparations,
 
 190 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 and they allowed the axe required for breaking 
 open the chests to be taken from them, well 
 knowing the use to which it was to be put. Lastly, 
 they received the proceeds of the robbery, they 
 saw portions thereof carried away, and they con- 
 cealed and appropriated the greater part thereof. 
 
 "Pannier, the former treasurer of the rebels, 
 provided Dame Bryond with a place of concealment; 
 he is one of the most dangerous participants in this 
 crime; he was privy to it from the beginning. With 
 him begin new ramifications, which are still involved 
 in obscurity, but which the eye of the law will keep 
 watch upon. He is the trusted confidant of Rifoe'l, 
 the depository of the secrets of the counter-revolu- 
 tionary faction in the West; he regretted that Rifoe'l 
 admitted women to the plot and placed confidence 
 in them; he received some of the stolen money and 
 he sent various sums to Rifoe'l. 
 
 "As for the conduct of the two gendarmes, Ratel 
 and Mallet, it calls for the utmost rigor of the law: 
 they were false to their duty. One of them, 
 anticipating his fate, committed suicide, but only 
 after making disclosures of great importance. The 
 other, Mallet, denied nothing; his admissions put an 
 end to all uncertainty. 
 
 "Dame Lechantre, notwithstanding her persistent 
 denials, was privy to the whole plot. The hypocrisy 
 of this woman, who tries to shelter her pretended 
 innocence behind the shibboleth of false piety, has 
 a history which proves her resolution and intrepidity 
 in emergencies. She alleges that she was deceived
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 191 
 
 by her daughter, that she believed the funds in 
 question to belong to Sieur Bryond. A vulgar ruse! 
 If Sieur Bryond had had money he would not have 
 left the province to avoid being a witness of his own 
 shame. Dame Lechantre's mind was set at rest as 
 to the disgrace of resorting to robbery, when she 
 found that it was approved by her confederate Bois- 
 laurier. But how does she explain RifoeTs presence 
 at Saint-Savin, his relations and his expeditions with 
 her daughter, and the sojourn of the brigands at 
 Saint-Savin, waited upon by the Godard girl and 
 Dame Bryond? She pleads heavy slumber, she 
 takes refuge in an alleged habit of going to bed at 
 seven o'clock, and she knows not what reply to 
 make when the examining magistrate calls her 
 attention to the fact that she rose at dawn, and 
 that at dawn she must have noticed some traces of 
 the conspiracy and of the visit of so many people, 
 and that she would naturally have been disturbed 
 by the nocturnal going and coming of her daughter. 
 Thereupon she observes that she was praying. 
 The woman is a model of hypocrisy. But her jour- 
 ney on the day of the crime, her solicitude to take 
 her daughter to Mortagne, her journey with the 
 money, her precipitate flight when everything was 
 discovered, the pains that she takes to conceal her- 
 self, the very circumstances of her arrest all tend 
 to establish her complicity from the beginning. She 
 does not act like a mother who wishes to advise her 
 daughter and rescue her from her danger, but like 
 a trembling accomplice; and her complicity is not
 
 192 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 the rash impulse of maternal affection, but the fruit 
 of party spirit, the inspiration of her well-known 
 hatred of His Royal and Imperial Majesty's govern- 
 ment. But even ill-advised maternal affection 
 would not excuse her; and we must not forget that 
 early, deliberate assent to the plot is the most 
 convincing evidence of complicity. 
 
 "The details of the crime as well as its artisans 
 are laid bare. We see the ghastly assemblage of 
 the fanatics of faction lured by the bait of rapine, 
 murder counseled by party spirit, under whose 
 a^gis they strive to justify the basest excesses to 
 their own consciences. The voice of the leaders 
 gives the signal for the plunder of the public funds 
 to pay for future crimes; base, evil-minded hirelings 
 commit the robbery for a small fee and do not 
 recoil at assassination; and fomenters of rebellion, 
 no less guilty, assist in the division and concealment 
 of the booty. What society would tolerate such 
 hateful crimes? The law provides no penalty 
 severe enough to punish them. 
 
 "Wherefore the special criminal court will be 
 called upon to determine whether the said Herbomez, 
 Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, 
 Melin, Binet, Laravinire, Rousseau, Dame Bryond, 
 Leveille, Dame Bourget, Vauthier, Chaussard the 
 elder, Pannier, Widow Lechantre, Mallet, all the 
 above-named defendants being in custody, and 
 the said Boislaurier, Dubut, Courceuil, Bruce, 
 Chaussard the younger, Chargegrain, Demoiselle 
 Godard these last being absent and fugitives from
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 193 
 
 justice are guilty or not guilty of the acts set forth 
 in this indictment. 
 
 "Done at Caen, in the office of the prosecuting 
 attorney, this ist day of December, 180-. 
 
 "Signed, BARON BOURLAC."
 
 This legal document, much briefer and more 
 imperative than the indictments of to-day, which 
 set forth so fully and in such minute detail the most 
 trivial circumstances and especially the previous 
 criminal record of the defendant, made a profound 
 impression upon Godefroid. The dry style of the 
 document, wherein the official pen had noted down 
 in red ink the principal details of the affair, set his 
 imagination at work. Condensed, concise narra- 
 tives are to certain minds texts into which they 
 plunge and investigate their mysterious depths. 
 
 In the middle of the night, assisted by the silence 
 and the darkness, and by the terrible connection 
 between that document and Madanae dela Chanterie, 
 which the excellent Alain had led him to suspect, 
 Godefroid exerted all the forces of his intelligence 
 to work out the appalling problem. 
 
 Evidently the name Lechantre was the family 
 name of the La Chanteries, who had doubtless been 
 shorn of their aristocratic suffix under the Republic 
 and the Empire. 
 
 He formed a mental picture of the region where 
 the drama had been enacted. The faces of the 
 secondary conspirators passed before his eyes. He 
 drew an imaginary sketch, not of Rifoe'l, but of a 
 Chevalier du Vissard, a young man resembling Sir 
 Walter Scott's Fergus, the French Jacobite, in a 
 (i95)
 
 196 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 word. He worked out the theme of the romantic 
 passion of a young woman grossly betrayed by the 
 infamous conduct of a husband a type of romance 
 then much in vogue loving a young chieftain in 
 rebellion against the Emperor, and plunging head- 
 long into a conspiracy, like Diana Vernon; losing 
 her head and unable to stop when she was once 
 fairly started upon that perilous incline! Had she 
 gone on as far as the scaffold? 
 
 Godefroid saw as in a vision the whole band of 
 conspirators. He wandered among the Norman 
 copses, he saw the Breton chevalier and Madame 
 Bryond in the fields; he lived at the old chateau 
 of Saint-Savin; he was present at the various scenes 
 at which they were all won over; he imagined the 
 features of the notary, the tradesman and all the 
 bold Chouan leaders. He readily divined the almost 
 universal concurrence of a region which still kept 
 alive the memory of the expeditions of the famous 
 Marche-a-Terre, of the Comtes de Bauvan and De 
 Longuy, of the massacre of La Vivetiere and of the 
 death of the Marquis de Montauran whose exploits 
 had already been narrated to him by Madame de la 
 Chante'rie. 
 
 This species of vision of men and things and 
 places passed very swiftly. Reflecting that he still 
 had much to learn concerning the imposing, noble, 
 devout old lady whose virtues exercised so great an 
 influence over him as to transform him, Godefroid, 
 with a thrill of terror seized the second document 
 given him by Alain, which was entitled:
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 197 
 
 "Brief in behalf of Madame Henriette Bryond des 
 Tours- Minilres, born Lechantre de la Chanterie." 
 
 "That settles it!" said Godefroid to himself. 
 
 The tenor of the document was as follows: 
 
 "We are convicted and we are guilty; but if a 
 case can be made for the exercise of the right of 
 pardon by the sovereign, do not the circumstances 
 of this case make it such an one? 
 
 "It is the case of a young woman, who has 
 declared that she is about to become a mother, and 
 who is condemned to death. 
 
 "Upon the threshold of a prison, in presence of 
 the scaffold that awaits her, that woman will tell the 
 truth. 
 
 "The truth will plead for her, to it she will owe 
 her pardon. 
 
 "In the indictment tried by the criminal court at 
 Alencon, there were, as there are in all indictments 
 against a large number of defendants jointly accused 
 of complicity in a conspiracy based upon the spirit 
 of faction, some portions involved in serious 
 obscurity. 
 
 "His Royal and Imperial Majesty's chancery 
 office is to-day in possession of the facts concerning 
 the mysterious personage known as Le Marchand, 
 whose presence in the Department of the Orne 
 during the trial was not denied by the prosecuting 
 authorities, but whom it was not deemed advisable 
 to include in the indictment, and whom the defense 
 was able neither to find, nor to produce in court if 
 found.
 
 198 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "That personage is, as the prosecuting attorney, 
 the prefecture, the Paris police and His Royal and 
 Imperial Majesty's chancery office well know, Sieur 
 Bernard-Polydor Bryond des Tours-Minieres, a 
 correspondent since 1794 of the Comte de Lille,* 
 known in foreign countries by the name of Baron 
 des Tours-Minieres, and in the records of the 
 Parisian police by the name of Contenson. 
 
 "He is a man of exceptional character, a man 
 whose youth and noble birth have been dishonored 
 by such all-absorbing vices, by such profound 
 immorality, by such foul crimes, that his infamous 
 life would certainly have ended on the scaffold, save 
 for the cunning with which he was able to make 
 himself useful in his double role, implied by his 
 double name. But, being dominated more and 
 more by his passions, by his growing needs, he will 
 end by falling lower than infamy, and will serve in 
 the lowest ranks, despite his incontestable talents 
 and a mind of remarkable power. 
 
 "When the Comte de Lille in his wisdom refused 
 to allow Bryond to handle any more of the funds 
 furnished by foreign powers, he determined to leave 
 the blood-stained arena to which his necessities had 
 driven him. 
 
 "Was that career no longer fruitful enough? Was 
 it remorse or shame that impelled this man to return 
 to the province where his property, laden with debt 
 even before his departure, was likely to furnish 
 small resources for the development of his genius? 
 
 * Afterwards Louis XVIII.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 199 
 
 It is impossible to believe it. A more probable 
 supposition is that he had a mission to fulfill in those 
 departments, where some embers of our civil dis- 
 cords were still smoldering. 
 
 "While he was looking over the province in which 
 his treacherous co-operation in the intrigues of 
 England and the Comte de Lille procured for him 
 the confidence of those families which belonged to 
 the party conquered by the genius of our immortal 
 Emperor, he fell in with one of the former rebel 
 leaders, with whom, at the time of the Quiberon 
 expedition and of the last uprising of the rebels in 
 the year VII., he had had some intercourse as an 
 envoy from the foreigner. He encouraged the hopes 
 of that great agitator, who has suffered the supreme 
 penalty for his plots against the State. Thus Bryond 
 was enabled to discover the secrets of that irrepres- 
 sible party, which fails to appreciate the glory of 
 His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon I, and the true 
 interests of the realm, which are united in his 
 sacred person. 
 
 "At the age of thirty-five, professing the most 
 sincere piety, boundless devotion to the interests of 
 the Comte de Lille and veneration for the insurgents 
 who met their death in the strife in the West, 
 disguising adroitly the indications of the excesses 
 that had wasted his youth, which still provided him 
 with some external attractions, and efficiently pro- 
 tected by the silence of his creditors and by the 
 most extraordinary complaisance on the part of all 
 the ci-devants of the province, that man, a veritable
 
 200 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 whited sepulchre, was introduced, with all those 
 claims to consideration, to Dame Lechantre, who 
 was believed to be very wealthy. 
 
 "The design was to marry Mademoiselle Henriette, 
 Madame Lechantre's only daughter, to this protege 
 of ci-devants. 
 
 "Priests, ex-nobles, creditors, each in a different 
 interest, praiseworthy in some, avaricious in others, 
 blind in the great majority, all conspired to bring 
 about the union of Bernard Bryond and Henriette 
 Lechantre. 
 
 "The good sense of the notary who had charge 
 of Madame Lechantre's affairs, and perhaps some 
 little distrust, were the cause of the young woman's 
 ruin. Sieur Chesnel, notary at Alengon, provided 
 in the contract that the estate of Saint-Savin, the 
 future bride's only property, should be held under 
 the dotal regime,* the dwelling-house and a modest 
 income being settled upon the mother. 
 
 "The creditors, who supposed that Madame 
 Lechantre, because of her methodical and economical 
 mode of life, possessed considerable capital, were 
 deceived in their hopes; and all of them, convinced 
 of that lady's avarice, instituted proceedings which 
 disclosed Bryond's precarious plight. 
 
 "Grave differences thereupon arose between the 
 newly-made husband and wife, and they resulted 
 in revealing to the young woman the depraved 
 
 *That is to say, the contract provided for preserving the wife's dowry 
 intact; a common provision for this purpose was that the dotal property 
 should be inalienable.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 2OI 
 
 morals, the religious and political atheism, and 
 shall I use the word? the infamy of the man with 
 whose destiny hers was so unhappily united. 
 Bryond, compelled to admit his wife to the secret 
 of the hateful plots woven against the imperial 
 government, offered Rifoe'l du Vissard shelter in his 
 house. 
 
 "The character of Rifoe'l, adventurous, fearless, 
 generous, exerted over all who came in contact 
 with him a fascination of which proofs abound in the 
 records of the criminal trials before three special 
 criminal tribunals. 
 
 "The irresistible influence, the absolute dominion 
 which he acquired over a young woman who found 
 herself at the bottom of an abyss, is only too evident 
 from the catastrophe whose horrible sequel causes 
 her to kneel a suppliant at the foot of the throne. 
 But a fact that His Royal and Imperial Majesty's 
 chancery can readily cause to be verified is the base 
 complaisance of Bryond, who, far from fulfilling his 
 duty as guide and counselor of the child whom a 
 poor deceived mother had entrusted to him, took 
 delight in drawing tighter the knots of the intimacy 
 between young Henriette and the rebel leader. 
 
 "This was the plan of that execrable individual, 
 who glories in his contempt for all things, in his 
 utter disregard of every object save the gratification 
 of his passions, and who looks upon the sentiments 
 dictated by civil and religious morality alike as mere 
 vulgar obstacles. 
 
 "This is the proper place to note how familiar
 
 202 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 such a scheme must be to a man who, since 1794, 
 has been playing a double role, and who, for eight 
 years past, has succeeded in deceiving the Comte 
 de Lille and his partisans, and it may be in deceiving 
 the general police of the Empire as well: do not such 
 men belong to him who pays them the highest price? 
 
 "Bryond spurred Rifoe'I on to the crime; he 
 insisted upon attacks with force and arms upon the 
 funds of the State and upon levying an extensive 
 contribution upon the purchasers of national property 
 by means of the horrible tortures which caused a 
 thrill of dismay through five departments, and which 
 were a conception of his brain. He demanded that 
 three hundred thousand francs should be turned 
 over to him to discharge the incumbrances upon his 
 property. 
 
 "In the event of resistance on the part of his wife 
 or Rifoe'I, he proposed to avenge himself for the 
 contempt he inspired in that upright young woman 
 by giving them both over to the rigor of the law as 
 soon as they should have committed any serious 
 crime. 
 
 "When he saw that the spirit of party was 
 stronger than his selfish interests in the two beings 
 whom he had bound together, he disappeared and 
 returned to Paris, fortified with full information 
 concerning the position of affairs in the departments 
 of the West. 
 
 "The brothers Chaussard and Vauthier were 
 Bryond's correspondents, as is well known to the 
 chancery office.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 203 
 
 "Returning secretly and in disguise to the prov- 
 ince, as soon as the attack upon the Caen remittance 
 was committed, Bryond, under the name of Le 
 Marchand, entered into a secret correspondence 
 with Monsieur le Prefet and the magistrates. What 
 was the result? Never was a conspiracy of greater 
 extent and participated in by so many persons 
 occupying such widely different positions on the 
 social ladder, more speedily known to the authori- 
 ties than that whose first overt act was the attack 
 upon the Caen remittance. All the culprits were 
 followed and watched, six days after the commission 
 of the offense, with a perspicacity that indicated the 
 most complete acquaintance with persons and plans. 
 The arrest, trial and execution of Rifoe'l and his 
 accomplices are proofs of what we say, cited solely 
 for the purpose of demonstrating our certainty; the 
 chancery office, we repeat, is more fully informed 
 than we upon this matter. 
 
 "If ever a person condemned to death should 
 appeal to the clemency of the sovereign, is not 
 Henriette Lechantre such a person? 
 
 "Drawn on by passion, by ideas of rebellion 
 which she imbibed with her mother's milk, she is 
 certainly unpardonable in the eyes of the law; but, 
 in the eyes of the most magnanimous of emperors, 
 will not the most infamous treachery, the fiercest 
 of all enthusiasms plead her cause? 
 
 "Will not the greatest of captains, the immortal 
 genius who pardoned the Prince von Hatzfeld, and 
 who has the power of divining, like God himself,
 
 204 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 motives born of the fallibility of the heart, will he 
 not recognize the existence of the power, invincible 
 in youth, which tends to excuse this crime, great as 
 it is? 
 
 "Twenty-two heads have already fallen beneath 
 the sword of justice, by virtue of the judgments of 
 three criminal courts; that of a young woman of 
 twenty, a minor, alone remains: will not the 
 Emperor Napoleon the Great permit her to live and 
 repent? Is she not God's share? 
 
 "For Henriette Bryond, wife of Bryond des 
 Tours-Minieres, 
 
 "Her defender, 
 
 "BORDIN, 
 
 "Solicitor at the Court of First Instance of the 
 Department of the Seine." 
 
 That shocking drama disturbed what little sleep 
 Godefroid obtained. He dreamed of capital punish- 
 ment as imagined by the physician Guillotin from 
 philanthropic motives. Through the scorching 
 vapors of a nightmare, he caught a glimpse of a 
 lovely, impassioned young woman, submitting to 
 the final preparations, drawn through the streets 
 upon a tumbril, ascending the scaffold and crying: 
 Vive le roil 
 
 Godefroid was consumed by curiosity. He rose 
 at daybreak, dressed, paced back and forth in his 
 room, and finally glued his face to his window, 
 gazing mechanically at the sky and reconstructing 
 that drama, as a modern author would do, in several
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 205 
 
 volumes. And still he saw, against that dark back- 
 ground of Chouans, country people, officers of the 
 law, provincial gentlemen, rebel chieftains, advocates 
 and spies, the faces of the mother and daughter 
 stand radiantly forth; the daughter deceiving her 
 mother, the daughter the victim of a monster, the 
 victim of her passion for one of those intrepid men 
 who were at a later period characterized as heroes, 
 and in whom Godefroid's imagination detected a 
 resemblance to the Charettes, the Cadoudals, the 
 giants of that conflict between the republic and the 
 monarchy. 
 
 As soon as Godefroid heard Goodman Alain 
 stirring in his room, he went thither; but, after 
 partly opening the door, he returned to his own 
 room. The old man was kneeling before his prie- 
 Dieu, saying his morning prayers. The aspect of 
 that hoary head, bent low in a profoundly devout 
 attitude, reminded Godefroid of his own neglected 
 duties, and he prayed fervently. 
 
 "I expected you," said the good man, when 
 Godefroid entered his room quarter of an hour later; 
 "I humored your impatience by rising earlier than 
 usual." 
 
 "Madame Henriette? " inquired Godefroid with 
 evident anxiety. 
 
 "Was Madame's daughter," the old man replied, 
 interrupting him. "Madame's name is Lechantre 
 de la Chanterie. Under the Empire, neither titles 
 of nobility nor names added to original family 
 names were recognized. Thus the Baronne des
 
 206 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Tours-Minieres was called Dame Bryond; the 
 Marquis d'Esgrignon resumed his name of Carol 
 and became Citizen Carol, later Sieur Carol; the 
 Troisvilles became Sieurs Guibelin." 
 
 "But what happened? Did the Emperor pardon 
 her?" 
 
 "Alas! no," replied Alain. "The ill-fated little 
 woman died on the scaffold at twenty-one. After 
 reading Bordin's brief, the Emperor said almost 
 these words to his chief judge: 
 
 " 'Why declaim against the spy? An agent is no 
 longer a man, he should cease to have feelings; he 
 is a wheel in a machine. Bryond did his duty. If 
 tools of that sort were not what they are, bars of 
 steel and intelligent only in obeying the orders of 
 the power they serve, there would be no govern- 
 ment possible. The judgment of the special criminal 
 court must be executed, otherwise my magistrates 
 would have no further confidence in themselves or 
 in me. Furthermore, the common soldiers employed 
 by those people are dead, and they were less 
 culpable than the leaders. Last of all, we must 
 teach the women of the West not to meddle in 
 conspiracies. For the very reason that the defend- 
 ant is a woman, the law must take its course. No 
 excuse is tenable in the face of the interests of the 
 constituted authorities.' 
 
 "Such is the substance of what the chief judge 
 chose to repeat to Bordin of his interview with the 
 Emperor. When he learned that France and Russia 
 were likely to measure swords with each other
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 207 
 
 before long, that the Emperor would be obliged to 
 go seven hundred leagues away from Paris to attack 
 a boundless, desert country, Bordin understood the 
 real reasons of the Emperor's lack of clemency. 
 To secure tranquillity in the West, which was 
 already overflowing with disaffected conscripts, 
 Napoleon deemed it essential to inspire a feeling of 
 wholesome dread. So the chief judge advised the 
 solicitor to take no further steps in behalf of his 
 clients." 
 
 "Of his client?" said Godefroid. 
 
 "Madame de la Chanterie was sentenced to 
 twenty -two years' imprisonment," replied Alain. 
 "As she had already been transferred to Bice'tre, 
 near Rouen, to undergo her punishment, there was 
 no occasion to devote any attention to her until 
 they had saved her Henriette, who had become so 
 dear to her since the ghastly trial, that they thought 
 that Madame would not have survived the sentence, 
 had not Bordin promised to obtain a remission of the 
 death penalty. So they deceived the unhappy 
 mother. She saw her daughter after the execution 
 of the others who were condemned by the same 
 judgment, not knowing that the respite was due to 
 a false declaration of pregnancy." 
 
 "Ah! I understand it all!" cried Godefroid. 
 
 "No, my dear child; there are things that one 
 cannot divine. For a long while Madame believed 
 that her daughter was alive." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "In this way. When Madame des Tours-Minieres
 
 208 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 learned from Bordin that her appeal for clemency 
 was denied, the sublime little woman had the 
 courage to write a score or more of letters, dated 
 from month to month after the date fixed for her 
 execution, in order to make her mother believe that 
 she was still alive and to describe the suffering 
 caused by an imaginary illness, from its beginning 
 until her death. Those letters covered a space of 
 two years. Thus Madame de la Chanterie was 
 prepared for her daughter's death, but for a death 
 from natural causes: she did not learn that she died 
 on the scaffold until 1814. For two whole years 
 she was confined with the vilest creatures of her 
 own sex, and wore the prison garb; but after the 
 second year, thanks to the persistent representations 
 of the Champignelles and Beauseants, she was 
 given a private room, where she lived like a clois- 
 tered nun." 
 
 "And the others?" 
 
 "Leveille the notary, Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, 
 Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard and Mallet were 
 sentenced to death and executed the same day. 
 Pannier, sentenced to twenty years of penal servi- 
 tude, as were Chaussard and Vauthier, was branded 
 and sent to the galleys; but the Emperor pardoned 
 Chaussard and Vauthier; Melin, Laraviniere and 
 Binet were sentenced to five years' imprisonment. 
 The Bourget woman was sentenced to twenty-two 
 years' imprisonment. Chargegrain and Rousseau 
 were acquitted. The fugitives from justice were 
 tried in their absence and were all sentenced to
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 209 
 
 death, except the Godard girl, who, as you must 
 have guessed, is no other than our good Manon 
 
 "Manon!" cried Godefroid in utter amazement. 
 
 "Oh! you don't know Manon yet!" rejoined 
 honest Alain. "The devoted creature, who was 
 sentenced to twenty-two years' imprisonment, gave 
 herself up in order to wait upon Madame de la 
 Chanterie in prison. Our dear vicar is the priest 
 from Mortagne who administered the last sacraments 
 to Madame la Baronne des Tours-Minieres, who had 
 the courage to escort her to the scaffold, and to 
 whom she gave her last farewell kiss. The sub- 
 lime and fearless priest had also attended the 
 Chevalier du Vissard on the scaffold. Thus our 
 dear Abbe de Veze was cognizant of all the secrets 
 of the conspirators." 
 
 "I see why his hair has turned white!" said 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "Alas!" continued Alain, "he received from 
 Amedee du Vissard a miniature of Madame des 
 Tours-Minieres, the only likeness of her in existence; 
 for that reason he became a sacred person in the 
 eyes of Madame de la Chanterie on the day of her 
 honorable return to society." 
 
 "How did it happen that she was able to return?" 
 inquired Godefroid in surprise. 
 
 "Why, at the return of Louis XVIII. in 1814, 
 Boislaurier, Monsieur de Boisfrelon's younger 
 brother, had orders from the king to incite a rising 
 in the West in 1809, and again in 1812. The 
 family name is Dubut, the Dubut of Caen is their 
 14
 
 210 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 kinsman. There were three brothers: Dubut de 
 Boisfranc, president of the Court of Aids; Dubut de 
 Boisfrelon, counselor of Parliament, and Dubut- 
 Boislaurier, captain of dragoons. The father gave 
 his sons the names of three different estates, 
 attempting to make of them stepping-stones to 
 patents of nobility, for the grandfather of the Dubuts 
 was a linen-draper. The Dubut of Caen, who 
 succeeded in making his escape, belonged to that 
 branch of the Dubuts which had remained in busi- 
 ness, and he hoped, by his devotion to the royal 
 cause, to succeed to the title of Monsieur de Bois- 
 franc. And Louis XVIII. satisfied the ambition of 
 that loyal servitor, who became Grand Provost in 
 1815, and later procureur-general under the name 
 of Boisfranc; he died first president of a royal court. 
 The Marquis du Vissard, the poor chevalier's elder 
 brother, was created a peer of France and over- 
 whelmed with honors by the king; he was appointed 
 a lieutenant in the Maison Rouge and prefect after 
 the disbandment of the Maison Rouge. Monsieur 
 d'Herbomez'sbrotherwasmadeacount and receiver- 
 general. The unfortunate banker Pannier died of 
 grief at the galleys. Boislaurier died, childless, a 
 lieutenant-general and governor of a royal chateau. 
 Messieurs de Champignelles, De Beauseant, the 
 Due de Verneuil and the Keeper of the Seals pre- 
 sented Madame de la Chanterie to the king. 
 
 " 'You have suffered bitterly enough in my behalf, 
 Madame la Baronne; you have a just claim to all 
 my favor and all my gratitude/ he said to her.
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 211 
 
 " 'Sire,' she replied, 'Your Majesty has so many 
 sorrows to console that I have no desire to burden 
 you with the weight of an inconsolable sorrow. To 
 live in oblivion, to weep for my daughter and to do 
 good, that is my life. If anything can lighten my 
 suffering, it is the kindness of my king, the pleasure 
 of seeing that Providence has not caused so much 
 devotion to go for naught.' ' 
 
 "And what did Louis XVIII. do?" asked Gode- 
 froid. 
 
 "The king ordered the restitution of two hundred 
 thousand francs to Madame de la Chanterie, for the 
 estate of Saint-Savin was sold for taxes," replied 
 the good man. "The pardon granted to Madame la 
 Baronne and her servant expressed the king's regret 
 for the suffering endured in his service, admitting 
 that the %eal of his servitors had gone somewhat too 
 far in the selection of methods of carrying out their 
 plans; but, it is a deplorable fact, and one which 
 will seem to you to illustrate a most curious feature 
 in that monarch's character, that he employed 
 Bryond in his secret police throughout his reign." 
 
 "Oh! these kings! these kings!" cried Godefroid. 
 "And is the villain still alive?" 
 
 "No. The miserable wretch, who had the grace 
 to conceal his name under that of Contenson, died 
 in the latter part of 1829 or early in 1830. While 
 arresting a criminal who tried to escape over the 
 roof of a house, he fell into the street. Louis XVIII. 
 agreed with Napoleon's ideas concerning the police. 
 Madame de la Chanterie is a saint, she prays for
 
 212 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 that monster's soul and pays for two masses a year 
 for him. Although she was defended by the father 
 of a great orator and by one of the famous advocates 
 of the time, Madame de la Chanterie, who knew 
 nothing of her daughter's danger until she brought 
 the money to Saint-Savin, and then only because 
 she was told by her kinsman Boislaurier, could 
 never establish her innocence. President du 
 Ronceret and Vice-president Blondet of the court at 
 Alencon tried in vain to save our poor lady; the 
 influence of the counselor from the imperial court 
 who presided at the special criminal session, the 
 famous Mergi, afterward procureur-general and a 
 fanatical partisan of the altar and the throne, who 
 caused more than one Bonapartist head to fall his 
 influence over his two colleagues was so great that 
 he succeeded in obtaining the conviction of the poor 
 Baronne de la Chanterie. Messieurs Bourlac and 
 Mergi displayed extraordinary vindictiveness at the 
 trial. The president called the Baronne des Tours- 
 Minieres, the Bryond woman, and Madame, the 
 Lechantre woman. The names of all the accused 
 were made to conform to the republican system and 
 almost all of them were distorted. The details of 
 the trial were most extraordinary and I do not 
 remember them all; but I do recall one audacious 
 stroke which will serve to show you what sort of 
 men those Chouans were. The crowd that tried to 
 witness the trial surpassed anything that your 
 imagination can conceive; it filled the corridors and 
 overflowed upon the public square, reminding one
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 213 
 
 of the crowd on fair days. One day, at the opening 
 of the session and before the arrival of the court, 
 Pille-Miche, the famous Chouan, leaped over the 
 railing into the midst of the audience, worked his 
 way with his elbows, mingled with the crowd and 
 was borne along with the waves of terrified people, 
 butting like a wild boar, so Bordin told me. The 
 gendarmes and the keepers rushed after him and he 
 was recaptured on the stairway within a step of the 
 square. That bold stroke led to the doubling of the 
 guard. A picket of gendarmes was ordered to be 
 stationed on the square, for they feared that there 
 might be Chouans in the crowd ready to give aid 
 and shelter to the defendants. Three persons were 
 crushed to death in the crowd as a result of that 
 attempt. Afterwards it was known that Contenson 
 like my old friend Bordin, I cannot make up my 
 mind to call him Baron des Tours-Minieres, nor even 
 Bryond, which is an old and honorable name it 
 was known, I say, that that villain appropriated 
 and squandered sixty thousand francs of the stolen 
 money; he gave ten thousand to young Chaussard, 
 whom he inveigled into the police, inoculating him 
 with his tastes and his vices; but no one of his 
 accomplices was fortunate. Chaussard was pushed 
 into the sea by Monsieur de Boislaurier, as soon as 
 he learned by a line from Pannier, of the treachery 
 of that knave, whom Contenson had advised to 
 rejoin the fugitive conspirators, in order to spy upon 
 them. Vauthier was killed in Paris, by one of the 
 Chevalier du Vissard's obscure and devoted partisans,
 
 214 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 I have no doubt. The younger Chaussard was 
 assassinated in one of the nocturnal broils pecu- 
 liar to the police; it is probable that Contenson 
 chose to rid himself of his demands or his remorse 
 by recommending him for prayers, as the saying is. 
 Madame de la Chanterie invested her money in the 
 public funds and purchased this house, in order to 
 comply with the desire of her uncle, the old coun- 
 selor De Boisfrelon, who gave her the requisite 
 money for the purchase. This quiet quarter was 
 near the archbishopric, where our dear abbe had a 
 position with the cardinal. That was Madame's 
 principal reason for not refusing to gratify the 
 wishes of the old man, whose fortune, after twenty- 
 five years of revolution, was reduced to six thousand 
 francs a year. Moreover, Madame desired to lead 
 an almost monastic life as a fitting sequel to the 
 horrible misery that had overwhelmed her for 
 twenty-six years. You ought now to be able to 
 appreciate the majesty, the grandeur of this august 
 victim I venture so to characterize her." 
 
 "Yes," replied Godefroid, "the marks of all the 
 blows she has received impart an indefinable touch 
 of grandeur and majesty to her appearance." 
 
 "Every wound, every fresh blow has seemed to 
 redouble her patience and resignation," continued 
 Alain; "but, if you knew her as we know her, if 
 you knew how keenly sensitive she is, how restless 
 the inexhaustible tenderness that flows from her 
 heart, you would be afraid to count the tears she 
 has shed, the fervent prayers she has addressed to
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 215 
 
 God. One must, like her, have known only a brief 
 season of happiness, to be able to resist so many 
 violent shocks! She has a tender heart, a gentle 
 soul enclosed in a body of steel, hardened by 
 privation, by toil, by rigid penance." 
 
 "Her life explains the long lives of hermits," said 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "On certain days I ask myself what can be the 
 meaning of such a life. Does God reserve these 
 last, cruel trials for those of His creatures who are 
 to sit beside Him on the morrow of their death?" 
 said Goodman Alain, unaware that he was ingenu- 
 ously expressing Swedenborg's whole doctrine 
 concerning the angels. 
 
 "What!" cried Godefroid, "Madame de la Chan- 
 terie was compelled to mingle with " 
 
 "Madame was sublime in prison," replied Alain. 
 "In the course of three years she verified the story 
 of the Vicar of Wakefield, for she converted several 
 of the unfortunate women by whom she was 
 surrounded. During her detention, as she observed 
 the morals of her fellow-prisoners, she was seized 
 with that immense pity for the sorrows of the 
 people, which still oppresses her and which makes 
 of her the queen of Parisian charity. In that 
 frightful Bictre at Rouen, she conceived the plan 
 to whose execution we have devoted ourselves. It 
 was, as she says, a delightful dream, an angelic 
 inspiration in the midst of hell; she had no idea that 
 she could ever realize it. Here in this house, in 
 1819, when tranquillity seemed to be re-established
 
 2l6 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 in Paris, she recurred to her dream. Madame la 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, later the Dauphiness, the 
 Duchesse de Berri, the archbishop, afterward the 
 chancellor, and some piously-disposed persons lib- 
 erally provided the first sums that were necessary. 
 This fund was increased by the alienable portions 
 of our revenues, from which each of us draws only 
 what is absolutely necessary for his personal use." 
 
 Tears came to Godefroid's eyes. 
 
 "We are the loyal instruments of a Christian 
 idea, and we belong body and soul to the-work of 
 which Madame de la Chanterie, whom you hear us 
 call Madame so respectfully, is the foundress and 
 the inspiration." 
 
 "Ah! I will be with you heart and soul," said 
 Godefroid, holding out his hands to his host. 
 
 "Do you understand now that there are some 
 subjects of conversation absolutely forbidden, even 
 by allusion?" continued the old man. "Do you 
 understand the obligations of courtesy which every 
 inmate of this house contracts toward her whom we 
 look upon as a saint? Do you understand the 
 fascination wielded by a woman made sacred by so 
 many misfortunes, who knows so many things, to 
 whom all forms of misfortune have said their last 
 word, who has learned some lesson from every 
 hardship, all whose virtues have had the twofold 
 sanction of the severest tests and constant practice, 
 and whose soul is without stain, without reproach; 
 who has known only the sorrows of maternity, 
 only the bitterness of conjugal love; upon whom
 
 MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE 217 
 
 life smiled only for a few short months, for whom, 
 doubtless, heaven has in store some reward for the 
 gentle resignation she has exhibited under such a 
 burden of grief? Is she not superior to Job in that 
 she has never murmured? Are you surprised now 
 to find her words so weighty, her old age so 
 youthful, her soul so communicative, her glance so 
 persuasive? She has acquired an enormous power 
 over the woes of others, for she has known woe in 
 every conceivable form. All suffering holds its 
 peace in her presence." 
 
 "She is a living image of charity!" cried Godefroid 
 enthusiastically. "Shall I be one of you?" 
 
 "You must submit to the tests, and, before all 
 things, HAVE FAITH!" exclaimed the old man gently. 
 "So long as you have not faith, so long as you have 
 not absorbed in your heart and your mind the divine 
 meaning of the Epistle of St. Paul concerning 
 charity, you cannot take part in our work." 
 
 Paris, 1843-1845.
 
 SECOND EPISODE 
 
 THE NOVICE 
 
 (219)
 
 THE NOVICE 
 * 
 
 The sublimely good is contagious no less than the 
 bad. So it was that, when Madame de la Chan- 
 terie's lodger had lived a few months in that 
 venerable, silent house, after Goodman Alain's last 
 confidential disclosures, which inspired in him the 
 most profound respect for the quasi-monks among 
 whom his lot was cast, he felt that well-being of the 
 soul which is due to a regular life, orderly habits 
 and harmony in the characters of those about us. 
 In four months, Godefroid, who had not in afl that 
 time heard an angry exclamation or a dispute, 
 confessed to himself that he could not remember 
 that he had been so absolutely at peace, if not 
 precisely happy, since he had been old enough to 
 reason. He judged the world accurately, looking 
 at it from a distance. In due time the desire he 
 had cherished for three months to be admitted to a 
 share in the work of those mysterious persons, 
 became a passion; and any man, even though he 
 be not a great philosopher, can guess how strong 
 the passions become in solitude. 
 
 One day therefore, a day invested with solemnity 
 
 because of the omnipotence of the mind, having 
 
 probed his heart and taken counsel of his strength, 
 
 Godefroid went upstairs to Goodman Alain, whom 
 
 (221)
 
 222 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Madame de la Chanterie called her lamb, and who 
 seemed to him to be the least imposing, the most 
 approachable of all his fellow-boarders, with the 
 purpose of obtaining from him some information as 
 to the conditions of admission to the priesthood 
 which he and his brethren in God, if we may call 
 them so, exercised in Paris. The allusions already 
 made to a period of trial seemed to point to some 
 form of initiation, for which he was waiting. 
 His curiosity had not been satisfied by what 
 the venerable old man had told him concerning 
 the reasons of his admission to a share in Madame 
 de la Chanterie's work, and he wished to know 
 more about it. 
 
 For the third time, Godefroid found himself in 
 Goodman Alain's presence at half-past ten at night, 
 just as the old man was about to read his chapter of 
 the Imitation. That time the gentle-souled apostle 
 could not refrain from smiling when he saw the 
 young man, and he said to him, without giving him 
 an opportunity to speak: 
 
 "Why do you apply to me, my dear boy, instead 
 of applying to Madame? I am the most ignorant, 
 the least clever, the most imperfect member of the 
 household. These last three days Madame and all 
 my friends have been reading your heart," he 
 added with a sly expression. 
 
 "And what have they found there?" queried 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "Ah!" replied the old man without attempting to 
 evade the question, "they have detected in you a 

 
 THE NOVICE 223 
 
 sincere longing to belong to our little flock. But 
 that sentiment has not as yet become a thoroughly 
 earnest vocation in you. Yes," he continued 
 hastily, in response to a gesture from Godefroid, 
 "your curiosity exceeds your fervor. In short, you 
 have not so entirely cut loose from your former 
 ideas that you have not fancied that there might be 
 something adventurous, romantic, as they say, in 
 the incidents of our life." 
 
 Godefroid could not help blushing. 
 
 "You fancy that there is a similarity between our 
 occupations and those of the caliphs in the Thousand 
 and One Nights, and you experience, in anticipation, 
 a sort of satisfaction in playing the part of a good 
 genius in the romantic tales of benevolence which 
 you amuse yourself by inventing! Ah! my son, 
 your confused smile proves that we have made no 
 mistake. How do you suppose that you can conceal 
 a feeling from people whose profession it is to divine 
 the most secret impulses of the mind, the wiles of 
 poverty, the scheming of want, and who are in 
 reality honorable spies, doing the good Lord's 
 police duty, judges of long experience, whose code 
 contains only absolution, doctors for all varieties of 
 disease, whose only remedy is money judiciously 
 employed? But, you see, my child, we make no 
 quarrel with the motives which bring us a neophyte, 
 provided that he remains with us and becomes a 
 brother in our order. We will judge you at work. 
 There are two sorts of curiosity, curiosity concern- 
 ing good and concerning evil; at this moment you
 
 224 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 have the former. If you are to be a laborer in our 
 vineyard, the juice of the grapes will make you 
 constantly hunger for the divine fruit. The initia- 
 tion is, as in all natural science, easy in appearance, 
 hard in reality. It is with charity as with poetry. 
 Nothing is easier than to acquire the appearance of 
 it. But here, as on Parnassus, we are content with 
 nothing short of perfection. To become one of us, 
 you must obtain an extended knowledge of life, and 
 of such life, great God! of Parisian life, which defies 
 the craft of Monsieur le Prefet de Police and his 
 associates. Have we not to defeat the permanent 
 conspiracy of evil, to follow it through all its forms, 
 which change so frequently that you would believe 
 there was no end to them? Charity, in Paris, must 
 be as knowing as vice, just as the police agent must 
 be as crafty as the thief. Each one of us has to be 
 straightforward and suspicious, to have a judgment 
 as unerring and swift as the glance. So it is, my 
 child, that we are all old, aged beyond our years; 
 but we are so well satisfied with the results we 
 have obtained that we do not wish to die and leave 
 no successors; and you are the dearer to us all 
 because you will be, if you persevere, our first pupil. 
 In our view there is no such thing as chance, we 
 are indebted to God for you! Yours is an excellent 
 nature, soured by misfortune; and since you have 
 lived here the leaven of evil has lost some of its 
 strength. Madame's divine nature has had its effect 
 on you. Yesterday we held a council; and, as I 
 have your confidence, my good brethren have
 
 THE NOVICE 225 
 
 decided to give you myself as teacher and guide. 
 Are you content?" 
 
 "Ah! my dear Monsieur Alain, with your elo- 
 quence you have awakened a " 
 
 "It is not I who am eloquent, my child, but the 
 circumstances under which I speak. One is always 
 sure of being great when obeying God and imitating 
 Jesus Christ, in so far as man can with the assistance 
 of faith." 
 
 "This moment has decided my future," cried 
 Godefroid; "I feel all the ardor of a neophyte! I 
 too am determined to pass my life in doing good." 
 
 "That is the secret of remaining in the peace of 
 God," replied the good man. "Have you studied 
 the motto: Transire benefaciendo? It means, to go 
 from this world leaving a long train of benefactions 
 behind you." 
 
 "I understand, and I have myself hung the motto 
 of the order opposite my bed." 
 
 "That was well done. That action, so trivial in 
 itself, is of much importance in my eyes! Well, my 
 child, I have your first case already, your first duel 
 with misery, and I am going to put your foot in the 
 stirrup. We are about to part. Yes, I myself am 
 detailed to leave the convent and take up my abode 
 in the heart of a volcano. I am about to become 
 superintendent of a large factory where all the 
 workmen are infected with communistic doctrines 
 and dream of overthrowing society and murdering 
 their masters, having no idea that that would mean 
 the death of commerce, manufacturing and factories. 
 15
 
 226 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 I shall remain there, who can say how long? 
 perhaps a year, acting as cashier and book-keeper, 
 and finding my way into a hundred or a hundred 
 and twenty households of poor wretches, who were 
 led astray by want doubtless before they began to 
 read bad books. However, we shall meet every 
 Sunday and every holiday. As we shall live in the 
 same quarter, I suggest the church of Saint- Jacques 
 du Haut-Pas as a rendezvous: I shall attend mass 
 there every day at half-past seven in the morning. 
 If you meet me elsewhere, you will never recognize 
 me unless you see me rubbing my hands like a man 
 in a contented frame of mind. That is one of our 
 signals. Like deaf-mutes, we have a sign language, 
 the necessity of which will be speedily and most 
 convincingly demonstrated to you." 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture which the good man 
 understood, for he smiled and at once continued: 
 
 "Now, this is your affair. We do not practice 
 the kind of benevolence and philanthropy with 
 which you are familiar, divided into several depart- 
 ments managed for their own benefit by honest 
 sharpers, like so many business enterprises; but we 
 practice charity as it is defined by our great and 
 sublime St. Paul; for we believe, my child, that 
 charity alone can heal the sores of Paris. And so, 
 misfortune, want, suffering, grief, disease, from 
 whatever cause they proceed, in whatever class of 
 society they manifest themselves, have the same 
 rights in our eyes. Whatever his belief or his opin- 
 ions, an unfortunate is, first of all, an unfortunate;
 
 THE NOVICE 227 
 
 and we do not seek to turn his face toward our 
 holy mother Church until we have saved him 
 from despair or starvation. And even then we seek 
 to convert him rather by example and by gentleness 
 than otherwise; for we believe that God assists us 
 therein. Any sort of constraint therefore is ill- 
 advised. Of all forms of misery in Paris, the most 
 difficult to discover and the bitterest is the misery 
 of honest people, of the higher class of bourgeois, 
 whose families have become impoverished, for they 
 make it a point of honor to conceal it. Such cases, 
 my dear Godefroid, are the objects of our special 
 solicitude. Indeed, the persons we assist possess 
 intelligence and heart, they repay with interest the 
 sums we have lent them; and those repayments 
 cover the losses we incur with the helpless, the 
 knaves, and those whom misfortune has made 
 stupid. Sometimes we obtain information from our 
 own debtors; but our work has become so extensive, 
 the details are so multitudinous, that we are no 
 longer able to attend to everything. So for seven 
 or eight months we have had a physician in our 
 employ in each arrondissement of Paris. Each of 
 us has charge of four arrondissements. We pay 
 each physician three thousand francs a year to look 
 after our poor. We have the first claim on his time 
 and his services, but we do not forbid his attending 
 other patients. Would you believe that we were 
 not able to find the twelve men that we needed, 
 twelve worthy men, in eight months, notwithstand- 
 ing the resources afforded by our friends and by our
 
 228 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 own extended acquaintance! Of course we must 
 have persons of absolute discretion, of pure morals, 
 of tried skill, energetic and fond of doing good, 
 must we not? Well, although there are in Paris 
 ten thousand men more or less adapted to our needs, 
 we did not fall in with the twelve elect for nearly a 
 year." 
 
 "Our Saviour had difficulty in collecting His 
 apostles, and even then a traitor and an unbeliever 
 wormed himself in among them!" said Godefroid. 
 
 "However, within a fortnight our arrondissements 
 have all been provided with visitors," continued the 
 good man with a smile; "that is the name we give 
 to our physicians; likewise, within a fortnight, we 
 have had an increased number of applications; but 
 we redouble our activity. My reason for confiding 
 to you this secret of our rapidly growing order is 
 that you will have to know the physician of the 
 arrondissement to which you are going, especially 
 as your information will come from him. His name 
 is Berton, Doctor Berton, and he lives on Rue 
 d'Enfer. Now, this is the case. Doctor Berton is 
 attending a woman whose disease defies science, so 
 to speak. That does not concern us, but the medi- 
 cal profession; our business is to discover the truth 
 as to the destitute condition of that sick woman's 
 family, which the doctor suspects to be most horrible, 
 but which is concealed with a determination and 
 pride that require us to exert our best efforts. 
 Formerly, I should have been equal to the task, my 
 child; but to-day the work to which my life is
 
 THE NOVICE 229 
 
 devoted requires an assistant for my four arron- 
 dissements, and you are to be that assistant. Our 
 family lives on Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, in a 
 house looking on Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. 
 You must find a room to let in that house, and try 
 to find out the truth while you live there. Be 
 economical to the point of sordid avarice so far as 
 your own expenses are concerned, but do not dis- 
 turb yourself about the money to be given away: I 
 will hand you such sums as we deem necessary 
 between ourselves, after a thorough investigation 
 of the circumstances. But study carefully the 
 moral qualities of the unfortunate creatures. Nobility 
 of feeling, an upright heart those are our pledges! 
 Misers toward ourselves, generous to the suffering, 
 we are bound to be prudent and even to calculate 
 very closely, for we are drawing on the treasure of 
 the poor. So to-morrow morning go and reflect 
 upon the great power placed in your hands. The 
 brethren are with you!" 
 
 "Ah!" cried Godefroid, "you give me such 
 pleasure in the thought of doing good and of being 
 worthy to belong to you some day, that I really shall 
 not be able to sleep." 
 
 "By the way, my child, one last injunction! The 
 order not to recognize me without the signal applies 
 equally to the other gentlemen, to Madame, and 
 even to the servants in the house. It is a necessary 
 part of the absolute incognito which is essential in 
 our undertakings, and we are so often obliged to 
 resort to it that we have made it a law. Furthermore
 
 230 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 we desire to remain unknown, lost to sight, in 
 Paris. Remember also, dear Godefroid, the guiding 
 principle of our order, which is never to appear as 
 benefactors, but to assume an obscure role, that of 
 intermediaries. We always represent ourselves as 
 the agents of a devout, saintly person are we not 
 working for God? so that nobody may feel obliged 
 to be grateful to us or take us for people of wealth. 
 True, sincere humility, not the false humility of 
 those who efface themselves in order to be forced 
 into the light, should inspire your actions and 
 govern all your thoughts. You may well be content 
 with success; but, so long as you are conscious of a 
 feeling of vanity or pride, you will not be worthy to 
 enter the order. We have known two perfect 
 men: one, who was one of our founders, the 
 magistrate Popinot; as for the other, who revealed 
 himself by his works, he was a country physician 
 who has left his name written in a country district. 
 He, my dear Godefroid, was one of the greatest 
 men of our time; he converted a whole canton from 
 irreligion to Catholicism, from the wild state to 
 prosperity, from barbarism to civilization. The 
 names of those two men are engraved in our hearts, 
 and we keep them before our minds as models. 
 We should be very happy if we could exert some 
 day in Paris the influence that that country doctor 
 exerted in his canton. But here the sore is of vast 
 extent and beyond our strength at the present time. 
 May God spare Madame to us for a long time to 
 come, may He send us a few such assistants as
 
 THE NOVICE 231 
 
 you, and then perhaps we shall leave behind us an 
 institution that will cause His holy religion to be 
 blessed! Well, adieu. Your initiation is beginning. 
 I chatter away like a professor, and I am forgetting 
 the most important thing: see, here is the address 
 of the family," he said, handing Godefroid a slip of 
 paper; "I have added the number of the house 
 where Monsieur Berton lives on Rue d'Enfer. Now 
 go, and pray God to assist you." 
 
 Godefroid took the excellent old man's hands and 
 pressed them warmly, as he bade him good-night 
 and promised to observe all his injunctions. 
 
 "Everything that you have said to me," he 
 added, "is engraved in my memory for my whole 
 life." 
 
 The old man smiled, saying nothing to imply any 
 incredulity, and rose to go and kneel before his 
 prie-Dieu. Godefroid returned to his room, over- 
 joyed to have a share at last in the mysteries of 
 that household and to have an occupation which, in 
 his then frame of mind, was a pleasure. 
 
 The next morning, at breakfast, good Alain was 
 missing, but Godefroid made no allusion to the 
 cause of his absence; nor was he questioned con- 
 cerning the mission the old man had entrusted to 
 him; thus he received his first lesson in discretion. 
 After breakfast, however, he took Madame de la 
 Chanterie aside and told her that he should be 
 absent for some days. 
 
 "It is well, my child," replied Madame de 
 la Chanterie. "Try to do honor to your sponsor,
 
 232 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 for Monsieur Alain has answered for you to his 
 brethren." 
 
 Godefroid said adieu to the other three brethren, 
 who returned his salutation affectionately, seeming 
 thereby to ask a blessing on his first step in that 
 difficult career. 
 
 Association, which is one of the greatest of social 
 forces and which made the Europe of the Middle 
 Ages, rests upon sentiments which, since 1792, have 
 not existed in France, where the individual has 
 triumphed over the State. Association demands, 
 first of all, a devoted nature which is not understood 
 in France; in the second place, an unquestioning 
 faith which is contrary to the spirit of the nation; 
 and lastly a rigid discipline, against which every- 
 body rebels and which the Catholic religion alone 
 can enforce. As soon as an association is formed 
 in our country, each member, upon returning home 
 from a meeting at which the noblest sentiments 
 have been expressed, thinks about making free use 
 of that collective devotion, of that assemblage of 
 forces, and he exerts his ingenuity to find ways of 
 milking the common cow for his own benefit; and 
 the poor beast, unable to meet the demands of so 
 much individual cunning, dies of exhaustion. 
 
 No one knows how many generous sentiments 
 have been withered, how many flourishing seeds 
 have perished, how many energetic intellects have 
 been shattered, lost to the country, by the infamous 
 deceptions of the French Charbonnerie* by the 
 
 * A political society formed in France under the Restoration.
 
 THE NOVICE 233 
 
 patriotic subscriptions to the Champ cTAsile* and 
 other political frauds, which were represented to be 
 great and noble dramas and which proved to be 
 nothing more than police court vaudevilles. It was 
 the same with industrial associations as with 
 political associations. Love of self was substituted 
 for love of the association. The corporations and 
 merchant guilds of the Middle Ages, to which we 
 shall at some time return, are impossible as yet; so 
 that the only SOCIETIES which still exist are the 
 religious institutions, upon which fierce war is being 
 waged at this moment; for it is the natural tendency 
 of a patient to attack the medicine and often the 
 doctor. France knows nothing of self-abnegation. 
 So it is that no association can live except by virtue 
 of the sentiment of religion, the only sentiment that 
 subdues rebellions of the mind, the scheming of 
 ambition, and greed of every sort Seekers after 
 new worlds do not know that association has worlds 
 to give away. 
 
 As he walked through the streets Godefroid felt 
 like an entirely different man. One who could 
 have read his thoughts would have marveled at the 
 curious result of according to him a share in a 
 collective power. He was no longer a mere man, 
 but an individual of tenfold importance, conscious of 
 being the representative of five persons whose com- 
 bined powers would uphold his actions, and who were 
 
 * A fraudulent scheme for founding a colony in Texas, i n connection with 
 the old Napoleonic troops who were unreconciled to the Restoration. See the 
 experiences of Philippe Bridau In La RabouilUuse.
 
 234 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 present wherever he was. Carrying their authority 
 in his heart, he was conscious of a fullness of life, a 
 noble power which aroused his best qualities. It 
 was, as he said later, one of the proudest moments 
 of his life; for he enjoyed a new sense, the sense 
 of an omnipotence more certain than a despot's. 
 Moral power is like thought, it has no limits. 
 
 "To live for others," he said to himself, "to act 
 in common like a single man, and to act by one's self 
 like all together! to have for one's leader Charity, 
 the fairest, the most life-like of the ideal figures we 
 have made of the Catholic virtues, that is living 
 indeed! But I must repress this childish delight at 
 which Pere Alain would laugh. Is it not strange, 
 however, after all, that I should have found the 
 power I have so earnestly desired for so long a time, 
 when my only idea was to efface myself? The 
 world of the unfortunate belongs to me hence- 
 forth!" 
 
 He walked from Notre-Dame Cloister to Avenue 
 de 1'Observatoire in such a state of exaltation that 
 he did not notice the length of the walk. 
 
 When he reached Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, 
 at a point near its junction with Rue de 1'Ouest, he 
 was surprised to find such quagmires in such a fine 
 location, for neither of the streets named was paved 
 at that time. One must walk along the vacant lots 
 on boards bordering boggy gardens, or in front of 
 the houses on narrow paths, on which pools of 
 stagnant water soon encroached and transformed 
 them into brooks.
 
 THE NOVICE 235 
 
 After a long search he succeeded in finding the 
 house to which he was directed, and entered it not 
 without difficulty. It was evidently an abandoned 
 factory. The front of the building, which was quite 
 narrow, presented the appearance of a high wall 
 pierced by windows, and without any sort of 
 decoration; but there were none of those square 
 openings on the ground floor, where naught could be 
 seen but a dilapidated low door. 
 
 Godefroid concluded that the proprietor had ar- 
 ranged small suites of rooms in the building in order 
 to turn it to some use, for there was a placard over 
 the door, bearing these written words: Several 
 rooms to let. He rang, but no one answered the 
 bell; as he was waiting, a passer-by called his 
 attention to the fact that there was another entrance 
 on the boulevard, where he would find somebody to 
 whom he could apply. 
 
 Godefroid followed the suggestion and discovered, 
 at the end of a small garden which skirted the 
 boulevard, the real front of the building, partially 
 concealed by trees. The garden, which was very 
 ill-kept, sloped considerably, for there is a consider- 
 able difference in grade between Rue Notre-Dame 
 des Champs and the boulevard, the result being 
 that the little garden was a sort of ditch. Godefroid 
 stepped down into a narrow hall, at the end of which 
 he saw an old woman whose dilapidated garments 
 were in perfect harmony with the house. 
 
 "Was it you that rang on Rue Notre-Dame?" 
 she asked.
 
 236 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Yes, madame. Are you the person who shows 
 the rooms?" 
 
 Upon receiving an affirmative reply from that 
 concierge of uncertain age, Godefroid inquired 
 whether the tenants were people of quiet habits; he 
 said that his occupation was one that demanded silence 
 and tranquillity; he was a bachelor and desired to 
 arrange with the concierge to do his housekeeping. 
 
 At that hint she assumed a gracious expression 
 and said: 
 
 "Monsieur is very lucky to come here; for, except 
 on fte-days at the Chaum&re the boulevard is as 
 deserted as the Pontine marshes." 
 
 "Do you know the Pontine marshes?" said 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "No, monsieur; but I have an old gentleman 
 upstairs, whose daughter's state brings her at the 
 point of death, and who says that; I just repeat 
 what he says. The poor old man will be very glad 
 to know that monsieur likes and desires rest; for a 
 tenant who was a General Tempest would hasten 
 his daughter's death. On the second floor we have 
 two author fellows; but they come home at mid- 
 night and go out at eight o'clock in the morning. 
 They say they're authors; but I don't know where 
 or when they work." 
 
 As she spoke, the concierge led Godefroid up a 
 horrible staircase of brick and wood, so ill-joined, 
 that one cannot say whether the wood was seeking 
 to part company with the bricks or whether the 
 bricks were tired of being held in bondage by the
 
 THE NOVICE 237 
 
 wood; the two materials protected themselves 
 against each other by a supply of dust in summer 
 and of mud in winter. The walls, of cracked 
 plastering, displayed more inscriptions than the 
 Academy of Belles-Lettres ever invented. The 
 concierge paused on the first landing. 
 
 "Here, monsieur, are two very nice adjoining 
 rooms that open on Monsieur Bernard's landing. 
 He's the old gentleman I spoke of, a very comme il 
 faut sort of man. He has a decoration, but he's 
 been unfortunate apparently, for he never wears it. 
 At first they had a manservant from the provinces, 
 and they dismissed him three years ago. Since 
 then the lady's young son has done everything: he 
 does the housekeeping " 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture. 
 
 "Oh! never you fear," cried the concierge, 
 "they won't say anything to you about it, they 
 never speak to anybody. The gentleman's been 
 here since the Revolution of July, he came in 1831. 
 They're provincials who were ruined by the change 
 of government; they're proud, they're as dumb as 
 fishes. In five years, monsieur, they haven't ac- 
 cepted the slightest service from me, for fear of 
 having to pay for it. A hundred sous at New 
 Year's, that's all I make out of them. Talk to me 
 about authors! I get ten francs a month from 
 them, just for telling everybody who comes to see 
 them that they moved out last quarter." 
 
 This prattle led Godefroid to hope for an ally in 
 the concierge, who told him, while vaunting the
 
 238 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 healthful qualities of the two rooms and the two 
 cabinets, that she was not the concierge, but the 
 landlord's confidential servant, and that she managed 
 the house for him, so to speak. 
 
 "You can have perfect confidence in me, mon- 
 sieur, I promise you! for Madame Vauthier would 
 rather have nothing at all, than take a sou belonging 
 to anybody else!" 
 
 Madame Vauthier soon came to terms with Gode- 
 froid, who refused to hire the apartment except by 
 the month and furnished. The miserable rooms 
 were let, furnished or unfurnished, to unfortunate stu- 
 dents or authors. The furniture was stored in the 
 vast garret, which was of the size of the whole 
 building. But Monsieur Bernard had himself fur- 
 nished the rooms he occupied. 
 
 By encouraging Dame Vauthier to talk, Godefroid 
 discovered that it was her ambition to keep a bour- 
 geois boarding-house; but, in five years, she had 
 not succeeded in recruiting a single boarder from 
 among her tenants. She lived on the ground-floor, 
 on the boulevard, and looked after the house herself, 
 with the assistance of a huge dog, a buxom maid- 
 servant, and a small male domestic who cleaned the 
 boots, did the chamberwork and the errands; they 
 were two impecunious creatures like herself, in 
 harmony with the wretched condition of the house, 
 the poverty of the tenants and the wild and desolate 
 aspect of the garden in front of the house. 
 
 They were both children abandoned by their fam- 
 ilies, to whom the widow Vauthier gave no wages but
 
 THE NOVICE 239 
 
 their board, and such board! The boy, of whom 
 Godefroid caught a glimpse, wore a ragged jacket for 
 livery, slippers instead of shoes, and outside the 
 house he wore wooden clogs. Unkempt as a sparrow 
 just out of his bath, and with black hands, he 
 measured wood in one of the woodyards on the 
 boulevard after his morning work was done; and, 
 after his day's work, which ended at half-past four 
 in the woodyards, he resumed his domestic occupa- 
 tions. He went to the fountain of the Observatory 
 to fetch the necessary water for the house, which 
 the widow supplied to the tenants, together with 
 little bundles of firewood, sawed and tied up by him. 
 
 Nepomucene such was the name of the widow 
 Vauthier's slave carried his day's wages to his 
 mistress. In summer, the poor outcast became a 
 waiter in the wine-shops at the barrier, on Sundays 
 and Mondays. At such times the widow provided 
 him with suitable clothes. 
 
 The stout maid-servant did the cooking under the 
 supervision of the widow Vauthier, whom she 
 assisted in her work the remainder of the time; for 
 the widow had a trade: she made list slippers, which 
 she sold to traveling hawkers. 
 
 Godefroid learned all these details in the course 
 of an hour, for the widow took him everywhere, 
 showed him the whole house, and explained the 
 transformation it had undergone. Up to 1828 it 
 had been used as a silk-worm nursery, not so much 
 to make silk as to obtain what is called the egg. 
 Eleven acres planted with mulberry trees on the
 
 240 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 plain of Montrouge and three acres on Rue de 
 1'Ouest, on which houses were subsequently built, 
 furnished nourishment for that manufactory of 
 silk-worm's eggs. Just as the widow was informing 
 Godefroid that Monsieur Barbet, who had lent 
 money to an Italian named Fresconi, the promoter 
 of that undertaking, had been unable to recover his 
 money, secured by a mortgage on lands and build- 
 ings, except by sale of the three acres which she 
 pointed out to him on the other side of Rue Notre- 
 Dame des Champs, a tall, thin old man, with 
 snow-white hair, appeared at that end of the street 
 which joins Rue de 1'Ouest. 
 
 "Ah! good! he comes just in time!" cried La 
 Vauthier; "see, there's your neighbor, Monsieur 
 Bernard. Monsieur Bernard," she said, as soon as 
 the old man was within ear-shot, "you won't be 
 alone any longer, this gentleman has hired the 
 apartment opposite yours." 
 
 Monsieur Bernard looked up at Godefroid with a 
 feeling of apprehension easy to detect; he had the 
 air of saying to himself: "The misfortune that I 
 dreaded has happened at last!" 
 
 "Monsieur," he said, aloud, "do you expect to 
 remain here?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," replied Godefroid frankly. 
 "This is not the abode of those who are numbered 
 among the fortunate ones of the earth, and this 
 house is the cheapest place I could find in the 
 quarter. Madame Vauthier does not pretend to 
 furnish lodgings for millionaires. Adieu, my dear
 
 GODEFROID MEETS M. BERNARD 
 
 "Ah! good! he conies just in time!" cried La 
 VautJder ; "see, there's your neighbor, Monsieur 
 Bernard. Monsieur Bernard," she said, as soon as 
 the old man was within ear-shot, "you won't be 
 alone any longer, this gentleman has hired the 
 apartment opposite yours." 
 
 Monsieur Bernard looked up at Godefroid with 
 a feeling of apprehension easy to detect.
 
 THE NOVICE 241 
 
 Madame Vauthier, arrange matters so that I can 
 take possession this evening at six o'clock, I will 
 return promptly at that hour." 
 
 Thereupon Godefroid walked away toward Rue 
 de POuest at a slow pace, for the anxiety depicted 
 on the tall old man's face led him to believe that he 
 would seek to come to an understanding with him. 
 In fact, after a moment's hesitation, Monsieur 
 Bernard retraced his steps and walked after Gode- 
 froid as if to overtake him. 
 
 "The old spy! he'll prevent him from coming 
 back," said Dame Vauthier to herself; "this is the 
 second time he's played me that trick. But patience! 
 in five days he has to pay his rent, and if he don't 
 come to time, I'll shut the door on him. Monsieur 
 Barbet is a kind of tiger who don't need to be 
 stirred up, and But I'd like right well to know 
 what he's saying to him. Felicite! Felicite! you 
 vile slut! will you ever come?" cried the woman 
 in a harsh, threatening tone she had used her mild, 
 flute-like voice in speaking to Godefroid. 
 
 The servant, a stout, squinting, red-haired damsel, 
 ran to the spot. 
 
 "Keep a sharp eye on everything for a little 
 while, d'ye hear? I'll be back in five minutes." 
 
 With that, Dame Vauthier, once cook to Barbet 
 the bookseller, one of the hardest-hearted of petty 
 usurers, glided after her two tenants, so that she 
 could watch them at a distance and be at hand to 
 rejoin Godefroid when the conversation between 
 
 him and Monsieur Bernard should come to an end. 
 16
 
 Monsieur Bernard walked slowly, like a man 
 whose mind is not made up, or like a debtor trying 
 to invent excuses to give a creditor who has just 
 left him in anger. 
 
 Godefroid, although his back was turned to the 
 stranger, looked at him while pretending to examine 
 the neighboring buildings. So it was not until he was 
 in the centre of the broad avenue in the Luxem- 
 bourg garden that Monsieur Bernard accosted him. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, monsieur," he said, raising 
 his hat to Godefroid, who returned the salutation; 
 "a thousand pardons for detaining you when I have 
 not the honor of being known to you; but is your 
 purpose to take up your quarters in the horrible 
 house in which I live, irrevocable?" 
 
 "Why, monsieur " 
 
 "Yes," the old man continued, interrupting 
 Godefroid with an authoritative wave of the hand, 
 "I know that you may ask me by what right I 
 interfere in your affairs, by what right I ques- 
 tion you. Listen, monsieur, you are young, and 
 I am quite old, older than my years; my age is 
 sixty-seven, and one would say that I was eighty. 
 Gray hairs and misfortune justify many things, as 
 the law exempts septuagenarians from certain public 
 services; but I do not mean to speak to you of the 
 rights of gray hairs, but of your own interests. Do 
 (243)
 
 244 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 you know that the quarter in which you propose to 
 live is deserted after eight o'clock in the evening, 
 and that one is exposed to many dangers there, the 
 least of which is robbery? Did you notice those 
 unoccupied spaces, those fields, those gardens? 
 You may remind me that I live there myself; but, 
 monsieur, I never go out after six o'clock in the 
 evening. You will remind me that there are two 
 young men who lodge on the second floor, over the 
 apartment you propose to take; but, monsieur, those 
 two poor scriveners are the victims of notes of hand, 
 hunted by creditors; they are in hiding, they go out 
 at dawn and return at midnight, having no fear 
 of robbers or assassins; besides, they always go 
 together and are always armed. I myself obtained 
 permission from the prefecture of police for them to 
 carry weapons." 
 
 "Oh! monsieur," said Godefroid, "I have no fear 
 of robbers for reasons similar to those that make 
 those gentlemen invulnerable, and I have such 
 contempt for life, that if I should be murdered by 
 mistake I would bless the murderer." 
 
 "You haven't the appearance of a very unhappy 
 man, however," rejoined the old man, who had 
 been examining Godefroid with attention. 
 
 "I have just enough to live on, to keep myself in 
 bread, and I have come here, monsieur, because of 
 the silence that reigns here. But may I ask you 
 what interest you have in keeping me away from 
 the house?" 
 
 The tall old man hesitated to reply; he saw
 
 THE NOVICE 245 
 
 Madame Vauthier coming; but Godefroid, who was 
 examining him attentively, was surprised at the 
 excessive emaciation to which grief and hunger, it 
 might be, or perhaps hard work had reduced him; 
 there were indications of all those causes of weak- 
 ness upon his face, where the dry skin clung close 
 to the bones, as if it had been exposed to the fierce 
 heat of Africa. The high, threatening forehead 
 sheltered beneath its dome two steel-blue eyes, 
 cold, stern, sagacious and keen as a savage's, but 
 marred by deep, heavily-wrinkled, black circles. 
 His long, thin, high-arched nose and his raised chin 
 made the old man's face curiously like the well- 
 known, hackneyed mask of Don Quixote; but he 
 was a threatening, awe-inspiring Don Quixote, with 
 no illusions. 
 
 Despite this general aspect of severity, the face 
 bore witness to the fear and weakness with which 
 poverty endows all its unfortunate victims. Those 
 two sentiments produced crevices as it were in that 
 solidly constructed face, so solidly constructed that 
 the destructive mattock of want seemed to have 
 dulled itself upon it. The mouth was grave and 
 eloquent. Don Quixote combined with President 
 de Montesquieu. 
 
 He was dressed throughout in black broadcloth, 
 but the broadcloth showed the nap. The coat, of 
 old-fashioned cut, and the trousers, exhibited divers 
 patches of bungling workmanship. The buttons 
 had been renewed. The coat was buttoned to the 
 chin so that the linen could not be seen, and the
 
 246 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 rusty black cravat concealed the identity of a false 
 collar. That black suit, worn for many long years, 
 was redolent of poverty. But the mysterious old 
 man's grand manner, his gait, the thought that 
 dwelt upon his brow and manifested itself in his 
 eyes, excluded the idea of pauperism. An observer 
 would have hesitated how to classify that Parisian. 
 
 Monsieur Bernard seemed so absorbed in thought 
 that he might have been taken for a professor of the 
 quarter, for a scholar plunged in jealous and despotic 
 meditation; wherefore Godefroid was seized with a 
 keen interest in him and a curiosity which his 
 benevolent mission excited to a high degree. 
 
 "Monsieur, if I were sure that you are really in 
 search of silence and retirement, I would say to 
 you: 'Live in my neighborhood,' " said the old 
 man. "Hire that apartment," he continued, raising 
 his voice so as to be heard by Dame Vauthier, who 
 passed at that moment, listening intently. "I am a 
 father, monsieur, and I have nobody on earth but 
 my daughter and her son to assist me to endure the 
 hardships of life; and my daughter requires silence 
 and absolute tranquillity. All those who have 
 hitherto taken the apartment you propose to take 
 have yielded to the arguments and the prayers of a 
 despairing father; it was a matter of indifference to 
 them whether they lived in one street or another of 
 a quarter which is really deserted, and where cheap 
 lodgings are as plentiful as moderate-priced boarding- 
 houses. But I see that your mind is fully made up, 
 and I entreat you, monsieur, do not deceive me; for
 
 THE NOVICE 247 
 
 in that case I shall be compelled to leave the house 
 and go outside the barrier. In the first place, 
 moving may cost me my daughter's life," he said, 
 in an altered voice; "and then, who knows whether 
 the doctors who attend my daughter now for the 
 love of God will be willing to go beyond the 
 barriers?" 
 
 If the man could have wept, his cheeks would 
 have been deluged with tears as he said these last 
 words; but, to use an expression in common use 
 to-day, he had tears in his voice, and he covered 
 his face with his hands, which seemed to be nothing 
 but bone and muscle. 
 
 "What is your daughter's disease, pray?" said 
 Godefroid in an insinuating, sympathetic voice. 
 
 "A horrible disease, to which the doctors give all 
 sorts of names, or, to speak more truly, which has 
 no name. My fortune has disappeared " 
 
 He checked himself, and said with one of those 
 gestures which belong only to the unfortunate: 
 
 "The little money that I had for I was left 
 without means in 1830, and deprived of an important 
 office all that I possessed was speedily consumed 
 by my daughter, who had already ruined her 
 mother, monsieur, and her husband's family. 
 To-day my pension is barely sufficient to pay for 
 the things that are absolutely necessary for my 
 poor saint-like daughter in her present condition. 
 She has exhausted my power of weeping. I have 
 undergone a thousand tortures, monsieur; I must 
 be of granite not to have died, or, rather, God
 
 248 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 preserves the father for the child, so that she may 
 have a nurse, a Providence, for her mother died of 
 grief. Ah! young man, you have come at the 
 moment when the old tree that has never bent 
 begins to feel the axe of want, sharpened by grief, 
 attack its heart. And I, who have never uttered a 
 complaint, propose to tell you about this disease, in 
 order to prevent you from coming to the house, or, 
 if you persist, to prove to you the necessity of not 
 disturbing our repose. At this moment, monsieur, 
 my daughter barks like a dog, day and night!" 
 
 "Is she mad?" said Godefroid. 
 
 "She is perfectly sane," replied the old man, 
 "and she is a saint. You will conclude directly that 
 I am mad, when I have told you all. My only 
 daughter, monsieur, was born of a mother whose 
 health was excellent. In all my life I have loved 
 but one woman and she was my wife. I chose her; 
 I married, for love, the daughter of one of the most 
 gallant colonels in the Garde Imperiale, a Pole, 
 formerly an orderly of the Emperor, the brave 
 General Tarlovski. The functions of the office I 
 held demanded great purity of morals; but my heart 
 was not made to furnish lodgings for many senti- 
 ments, and I faithfully loved my wife, who well 
 deserved such a love. As a father, I am what I 
 was as a husband, that is the whole truth in a word. 
 My daughter never left her mother, and no child 
 ever lived a more chaste, more Christian life than 
 that dear girl. She was born more than pretty, 
 beautiful; and her husband, a young man of whose
 
 THE NOVICE 249 
 
 morals I was sure, for he was the son of a friend of 
 mine, the president of one of the royal courts, 
 certainly cannot have contributed in any way to 
 my daughter's malady." 
 
 He paused, and he and Godefroid instinctively 
 glanced at each other. 
 
 "Marriage, as you know, sometimes changes 
 young people a great deal," continued the old man. 
 "Her first confinement passed off without accident, 
 and she brought forth a son, my grandson, who 
 lives with me now, the only scion of the two 
 families. The second pregnancy was attended by 
 such extraordinary symptoms that all the physicians 
 were astounded and could attribute them only to the 
 curious phenomena which sometimes manifest them- 
 selves under those conditions, and which they 
 record in the annals of the science. My daughter 
 gave birth to a dead child, literally deformed and 
 suffocated by interior convulsions. The disease 
 was beginning, but the pregnancy had nothing to 
 do with it. Perhaps you have studied medicine?" 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture which could be inter- 
 preted as one of assent or dissent. 
 
 "After that terrible, laborious confinement," 
 continued Monsieur Bernard "a confinement, 
 monsieur, which produced so violent an impression 
 on my son-in-law, that the melancholia supervened, 
 of which the poor boy died my daughter, after two 
 or three months, complained of a general weakness 
 which affected her feet particularly, so that they 
 seemed to her, as she said, to be made of cotton.
 
 250 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 That atony changed to paralysis, but such paralysis, 
 monsieur! You could bend my daughter's feet 
 under her and twist them in every direction, and 
 she did not feel it. The limb existed, but apparently 
 had neither blood nor muscles nor bones. This 
 affection, which has nothing in common with any 
 known disease, extended to the arms and hands, 
 and we thought that it must be some disease of the 
 spinal column. Doctors and medicines simply made 
 her worse, until my poor child could not stir without 
 putting her ribs or her shoulders or her arms out of 
 joint. We had in the house for a long while an 
 excellent surgeon, who spent almost his whole time, 
 in conjunction with the physician or physicians, 
 for he came to us from curiosity, replacing her 
 limbs would you believe it, monsieur? three or 
 four times a day! Ah! the disease has so many 
 forms, that I forgot to tell you that, during the 
 period of weakness, before her limbs were paralyzed, 
 my daughter had the most extraordinary attacks of 
 catalepsy. You know what catalepsy is? For 
 instance she would remain for days at a time, with 
 her eyes open, perfectly motionless in whatever 
 position she was in when the fit seized her. She 
 went through the most shocking phases of that 
 malady and even had attacks of tetanus. That 
 phase of the disease suggested to me the idea of 
 using magnetism as a remedy, when I saw that she 
 was paralyzed in such a strange way. My daughter, 
 monsieur, was gifted with marvelous powers of 
 clairvoyance; her mind has been the stage of all
 
 THE NOVICE 251 
 
 the marvels of somnambulism, even as her body is 
 the stage of all diseases." 
 
 Godefroid began to wonder if the old man were 
 perfectly sane. 
 
 "I am a child of the eighteenth century, fed upon 
 Voltaire, Diderot and Helvetius," he continued, 
 paying no heed to the expression of Godefroid 's 
 eyes, "I am a son of the Revolution, and I laughed 
 at all the stories of people possessed by devils in 
 ancient times and the Middle Ages; but, monsieur, 
 such possession alone will explain my daughter's 
 condition. Even in her somnambulism she has 
 never been able to tell us the causes of her suffer- 
 ings; she did not see them, and all the methods of 
 treatment she has dictated to us, although scrupu- 
 lously followed, have done her no good. For 
 example, she wished to be wrapped in the body of 
 a freshly-killed pig; then she ordered us to stick 
 sharp pieces of iron, heavily magnetized and heated 
 red hot, into her legs; to pour melted sealing-wax 
 all along her backbone. And such horrible things 
 happened to her, monsieur! Her teeth fell out! 
 She became deaf, then dumb; and then, after six 
 months of absolute deafness and dumbness, sud- 
 denly the power of speech and hearing came back 
 to her. She recovered the use of her hands 
 spasmodically, as she lost it; but her feet have been 
 useless for seven years. She has exhibited the 
 characteristic symptoms of hydrophobia and has had 
 well-defined attacks of that disease. Not only does 
 the sight or sound of water, the sight of a glass or
 
 252 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 cup, make her wild, but she has contracted the 
 habit of barking like a dog, a melancholy bark, 
 howls such as a dog utters when anyone plays the 
 organ. Several times she has been at the point of 
 death and has received the sacraments, and she has 
 returned to life, to suffer in the full possession of 
 her reason, with her mind perfectly clear; for the 
 powers of the mind and heart are still unimpaired. 
 She has lived, monsieur, but she has caused the 
 death of her mother and her husband, who were not 
 able to endure the strain of such paroxysms. Alas! 
 monsieur, what I have told you is nothing! All the 
 natural functions are perverted, and medical science 
 alone can explain the extraordinary aberrations of 
 her organs. And in that condition I was obliged to 
 bring her from the province to Paris, in 1829; for 
 the two or three physicians in Paris to whom I 
 applied, Desplein, Bianchonand Haudry, all believed 
 that I was trying to deceive them. The power of 
 magnetism was in those days very energetically 
 denied by the scientific societies; and, although 
 they did not impugn my good faith and that of the 
 provincial doctors, they imagined that there had 
 been careless observation, or, if you please, exag- 
 geration, which is very common among patients 
 and their families. But they were compelled to 
 change their minds, and the phenomena they 
 observed in my daughter's case are responsible for 
 the recent researches in the matter of nervous 
 diseases, for her extraordinary plight is so classified. 
 The last consultation held by those gentlemen
 
 THE NOVICE 253 
 
 resulted in the cessation of the use of medicines; 
 they decided that nature must be left to itself and 
 its processes carefully studied. Since then I have 
 had only one physician, the last is the one who 
 attends the poor people in the quarter. He does 
 well enough to ease her pain, to give her momentary 
 relief, which is all we can do, as its cause is not 
 known." 
 
 At that point the old man paused, as if oppressed 
 by the burden of those horrifying disclosures. 
 
 "For five years," he continued, "my daughter 
 has alternated between periods of slight improvement 
 and constant relapses; but there has been no new 
 development. She suffers more or less from the 
 various forms of nervous attacks which I have 
 briefly described to you; but the affection of the 
 legs and the disorder of the natural functions 
 are constant. Our poverty, which has steadily 
 increased, compelled O6 to leave the apartment in 
 the Roule quarter, which I hired in 1829; and as my 
 daughter cannot endure being moved, and as I have 
 already nearly lost her twice, bringing her to Paris 
 and moving from the Beaujon quarter here, I hired 
 my present lodgings at once, anticipating the 
 misfortunes which were not slow to burst upon me; 
 for, after thirty years' service, they made me wait 
 until 1833 for the adjustment of my pension. I did 
 not receive a sou until within six months, and the 
 new government had added to its other harsh 
 measures that of granting me only the minimum 
 amount."
 
 254 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture of surprise, which was 
 in effect a request for unreserved confidence, and 
 the old man so understood it, for he at once 
 continued, not without a reproachful glance toward 
 heaven: 
 
 "I am one of the innumerable victims of the 
 political reactions. I conceal a name upon which 
 many people would be glad to take revenge, and if 
 the lessons of experience are not always wasted 
 from generation to generation, remember, young 
 man, never to lend a hand in carrying out the harsh 
 measures of any political party. Not that I repent 
 having done my duty, my conscience is perfectly 
 clear, but the ruling powers of to-day have not that 
 solidarity which binds governments together, even 
 though they be widely different in form; and if zeal 
 is rewarded, it is the result of a passing fear. The 
 instrument they have used, however faithful an 
 instrument it may have been, is sooner or later 
 entirely forgotten. You see in me one of the most 
 steadfast supporters of the government of the 
 Bourbons of the elder branch, as I was of the 
 imperial government, and I am destitute! I am too 
 proud to beg, so that no one will ever dream of the 
 untold agony I suffer. Five days ago, monsieur, 
 the physician of the quarter, who is attending my 
 daughter or observing her case, if you choose told 
 me that he was powerless to cure a disease, the 
 form of which varied every fortnight. According 
 to him, nervous diseases are the despair of 
 medical science, for their causes must be sought in
 
 THE NOVICE 255 
 
 unexplorable directions. He advised me to have 
 recourse to a Jew doctor who is reputed to be a 
 quack; but he told me that he was a foreigner, a 
 Polish refugee, that the faculty are very jealous of 
 some extraordinary cures that have caused much 
 talk, and that some people believe him to be very 
 learned and very skilful. But he is exacting and 
 suspicious, he selects his own patients and does not 
 waste his time; and lastly he is a communist. 
 His name is Halpersohn. My grandson has been to 
 see him twice to no purpose, for we have had no 
 call from him as yet, I understand why!" 
 
 "Why?" queried Godefroid. 
 
 "Oh! my grandson, who is sixteen years old, is 
 dressed even more shabbily than I am; and, would 
 you believe it, monsieur, I do not dare to call on 
 this doctor: my attire accords too ill with what one 
 would naturally expect in a man of my age, of my 
 gravity of character. If he sees the grandfather so 
 destitute, when the grandson is equally ill-clad, will 
 he give my daughter the necessary attention? He 
 will treat her as they all treat the poor. And con- 
 sider, my dear monsieur, that I love my daughter 
 for all the pain she has caused me, just as I loved 
 her formerly for all the happiness I owed to her. 
 She has become angelic. Alas! she is no longer 
 aught but a soul, a soul that shines upon her son 
 and upon me: the body no longer exists, for she has 
 Conquered pain. Judge what a spectacle for a 
 father! To my daughter the world is her poor 
 room! she must have flowers, which she loves; she
 
 256 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 reads a great deal; and, when she has the use of 
 her hands, she works like a fairy. She knows 
 nothing of the profound destitution in which we are 
 plunged. Thus our life is such an abnormal one 
 that we cannot admit anyone to our apartments. 
 Do you understand me, monsieur? Do you see 
 why a neighbor is an impossibility? I should ask 
 him to do so many things, that I should place myself 
 under too great a burden of obligation, and it would 
 be impossible for me to repay him. In the first 
 place, I have not time for everything: I am educating 
 my grandson, and I work so hard, so hard, monsieur, 
 that I do not sleep more than three or four hours " 
 
 "Monsieur," Godefroid interrupted the old man, 
 whom he had listened to patiently, watching him 
 with sorrowful attention, "I will be your neighbor 
 and I will assist you " 
 
 The old man made a gesture of pride, of impatience 
 even, for he had no belief in the goodness of mankind. 
 
 "I will assist you," continued Godefroid, taking 
 the old man's hands and pressing them with respect- 
 ful warmth, "so far as 1 can assist you. Tell me. 
 What do you expect to do with your grandson?" 
 
 "He is to enter the School of Law soon, for he 
 will follow the legal profession." 
 
 "Then your grandson will cost you six hundred 
 francs a year." 
 
 The old man said nothing. 
 
 "I have nothing myself," said Godefroid after a 
 pause, "but I can do much. I will have the Jew 
 doctor for you, and if your daughter is curable she
 
 THE NOVICE 257 
 
 shall be cured. We will find a way to pay this 
 Halpersohn." 
 
 "Oh! if my daughter should be cured, I would 
 make a sacrifice that I can make but once!" cried 
 the old man. "I would sell what I have retained as 
 a last resource!" 
 
 "You will keep it" 
 
 "Oh! youth! youth!" cried the old man, shaking 
 his head. "Adieu, monsieur, or rather au revoir. 
 It is time for the library to open, and, as I have sold 
 all my books, I am obliged to go there every day to 
 work. I am grateful to you for this generous impulse 
 of yours; but we shall see if you will show the con- 
 sideration I must ask at my neighbor's hands. That 
 is all I expect of you." 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, let me be your neighbor; for, 
 you see, Barbet is not the man to leave his rooms 
 unoccupied long, and you might fall in with a worse 
 companion in misfortune than myself. I do not ask 
 you to trust me now, but to allow me to be useful 
 to you." 
 
 "In whose interest?" cried the old man, as he 
 prepared to descend the steps of the Chartreux 
 Cloister, which was then the usual passageway 
 from the main avenue of the Luxembourg to Rue 
 d'Enfer." 
 
 "Have you never, in the performance of your 
 duties, obliged any person?" 
 
 The old man looked at Godefroid with contracted 
 eyebrows, his eyes overflowing with memories, like 
 a man who examines the book of his life, seeking 
 17
 
 258 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 an action to which he could attribute such rare 
 gratitude, and he turned coldly away, after a parting 
 salutation instinct with doubt. 
 
 "Well, for a first interview, he was not very 
 badly frightened," said the novice to himself. 
 
 Godefroid at once betook himself to Rue d'Enfer, 
 to the address given him by Monsieur Alain, and 
 found Doctor Berton, a cold, stern man, who sur- 
 prised him greatly by assuring him of the accuracy 
 of all the details of his daughter's illness given him 
 by Monsieur Bernard; and he obtained Halpersohn's 
 address. 
 
 That Polish physician, who subsequently became 
 so famous, was then living at Chaillot, Rue Marbeuf, 
 in a small isolated house, occupying the whole first 
 floor. General Roman Zarnovicki lived on the 
 ground floor and the servants of the two refugees 
 occupied the rooms under the eaves of the diminutive 
 mansion, which had but two floors. Godefroid did 
 not see the doctor; he learned that he had gone 
 some distance into the country at the summons of a 
 wealthy patient; but he was almost glad that he 
 did not find him, for, in his haste, he had forgotten 
 to provide himself with money, and was obliged to 
 return to his room at the H6tel de la Chanterie to 
 obtain a supply. 
 
 These various trips and the time passed at dinner 
 at a restaurant in Rue de TOdeon brought Godefroid 
 to the hour when he was to take possession of his 
 lodging on Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. Nothing 
 could be more wretched than the furniture with
 
 THE NOVICE 259 
 
 which Madame Vauthier had furnished the two 
 rooms. It seemed that the woman must have been 
 accustomed to let lodgings that were not occupied. 
 The bed, chairs, tables, commode, desk and 
 curtains were evidently procured at sales made by 
 authority of law, in cases where the usurer had kept 
 them for some debt, failing to obtain what they were 
 worth a case of frequent occurrence. 
 
 Madame Vauthier stood with her arms akimbo, 
 waiting for thanks; she mistook Godefroid's smile 
 for a smile of pleased surprise. 
 
 "Ah! I selected all the finest things we have for 
 you, my dear Monsieur Godefroid," she said with a 
 triumphant air. "There are pretty silk curtains, 
 and a mahogany bed that isn't eaten by worms! it 
 belonged to the Prince de Wissembourg and came 
 from his hotel. When he left Rue Louis-le-Grand 
 in 1809, I was a scullery maid in his house. From 
 there I entered my landlord's service." 
 
 Godefroid checked this flow of confidences by 
 paying his month's rent in advance, and, also in 
 advance, the six francs he was to pay Madame 
 Vauthier for keeping house for him. At that moment 
 he heard a bark, and, if he had not been warned by 
 Monsieur Bernard, he would have believed that his 
 neighbor kept a dog in his room. 
 
 "Does that dog yelp at night?" 
 
 "Oh! don't be alarmed, monsieur, be patient, 
 you only have this week to suffer. Monsieur 
 Bernard won't be able to pay his rent and he'll be 
 turned out. But they're very curious people, I tell
 
 260 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 you! I never saw their dog. The dog was here 
 for months what do I say? months? yes, six 
 months, without anyone hearing him! You would 
 never have believed they had a dog. The beast 
 never leaves the lady's room. There's a lady there 
 very sick, you know! She's never been out of her 
 room since she first went into it. Old Monsieur 
 Bernard works very hard, and so does her son, 
 who's a day scholar at College Louis-le-Grand, 
 where he's finishing his course in philosophy, at 
 sixteen! He's a young blade, I tell you! but the 
 little rascal works like a madman! You'll hear 
 them taking out the flowers from the lady's room, 
 for the grandfather and 'grandson eat nothing but 
 bread, but they buy flowers and dainties for the 
 lady. The lady must be very sick not to have left 
 the house since she came here; and, from what 
 Monsieur Berton says, the doctor who comes to 
 see her, she won't go out till she goes feet fore- 
 most." 
 
 "What does this Monsieur Bernard do?" 
 
 "He's a scholar, it seems; for he writes, he goes 
 to the libraries to work, and monsieur lends him 
 money on what he writes." 
 
 "Who is monsieur?" 
 
 "My landlord, Monsieur Barbet, who used to be 
 a bookseller; he was in business sixteen years. 
 He's a Norman and used to sell lettuce in the street; 
 he set up in the old-book trade on the quays, in 
 1818; then he had a little shop and now he's very 
 rich. He's a sort of Jew with thirty-six trades; he
 
 THE NOVICE 26l 
 
 was a partner, as you might say, with the Italian 
 who built this old barrack to lodge silk-worms in." 
 
 "So this house is a place of refuge for unfortunate 
 authors, is it?" said Godefroid. 
 
 "Is monsieur unlucky enough to be one of 'em?" 
 queried the widow Vauthier. 
 
 "I am only a beginner," Godefroid replied. 
 
 "Oh! my dear monsieur, for the evil I wish you, 
 stop where you are! Now, as to journalists, I don't 
 say" 
 
 Godefroid could not refrain from laughing as he 
 said good-night to the ex-cook, who unconsciously 
 represented the whole bourgeoisie. As he went to 
 bed in that depressing chamber, with its flooring of 
 red bricks which had not even been painted, and 
 hung with paper at seven sous the roll, Godefroid 
 regretted not only his little apartment on Rue 
 Chanoinesse, but also and more than all else the 
 society of Madame de la Chanterie. He felt a great 
 void in his heart. He had already fallen into new 
 ways of thinking, and he did not remember that he 
 had ever in all his life experienced such keen regret. 
 The comparison, brief as it was, had a tremendous 
 effect upon his mind: he understood that no life 
 could be compared with the life he longed to 
 embrace, and his resolution to rival honest Alain 
 was unassailable. Lacking the vocation, he had 
 the will.
 
 The next morning Godefroid, who had become 
 accustomed in his new life to rising very early, saw 
 from his window a young man of some seventeen 
 years, dressed in a blouse, who was returning 
 doubtless from some public fountain, with a jug 
 filled with water in each hand. The face of the 
 young man, who was not aware that he was being 
 watched, gave full expression to his sentiments, 
 and Godefroid had never seen aught so ingenuous, 
 nor aught so sad. The charms of youth were held 
 in check by want, by study and by great physical 
 weariness. Monsieur Bernard's grandson was 
 noticeable by virtue of his extreme pallor, which 
 was heightened by his very dark brown hair. He 
 made three journeys to the fountain; as he returned 
 from the last he saw a load of wood being delivered 
 which Godefroid had ordered the day before, for 
 the late winter of 1838 was beginning to make itself 
 felt and a light snow had fallen during the night. 
 
 Nepomucene, who had begun his day's work by 
 going after the wood, on which Madame Vauthier 
 had made a large levy in consideration of the ser- 
 vice, was talking with the young man, while wait- 
 ing for the sawer to prepare a bundle for him to 
 take upstairs. It was easy to see that the sudden 
 approach of cold weather was causing Monsieur 
 Bernard's grandson some anxiety, and that the 
 (263)
 
 264 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 sight of the wood, as well as the leaden sky, re- 
 minded him of the necessity of laying in his own 
 supply. But suddenly, as if he reproached him- 
 self for wasting precious time, the young man took 
 up his two jugs and hurried into the house. It 
 was half-past seven o'clock, and when he heard 
 the clock at the Convent of the Visitation strike 
 that hour, he remembered that he must be at the 
 College Louis-le-Grand at half-past eight. 
 
 Just as the young man entered the house, Gode- 
 froid opened his door to Madame Vauthier, who was 
 bringing hot coals for her new tenant so that 
 Godefroid witnessed a scene that took place on the 
 landing. A gardener from the neighborhood, after 
 ringing several times at Monsieur Bernard's door 
 without result, for the bell was wrapped in paper, 
 indulged in a coarse dispute with the young man, 
 demanding the money due for the hire of the plants 
 furnished by him. As the creditor raised his voice, 
 Monsieur Bernard appeared. 
 
 "Go in and dress yourself, Auguste," he said to his 
 grandson, "it is time for you to go to the college." 
 
 He took the two jugs and returned to the first 
 room of his suite, where Godefroid caught a glimpse 
 of plants in jardinieres; then he closed the door and 
 returned to speak with the gardener. Godefroid's 
 door was open, for Nepomucene had begun his trips 
 and was piling up the wood in the first room. The 
 gardener had held his peace at sight of Monsieur 
 Bernard, who made an imposing appearance in a 
 violet silk dressing-gown buttoned to the chin.
 
 THE NOVICE 265 
 
 "You can just as well ask for what we owe you 
 without shouting so," said he. 
 
 "Be just, my dear monsieur," rejoined the 
 gardener: "you were to pay me every week, and 
 here it is three months, ten weeks, since I received 
 anything, and you owe me a hundred and twenty 
 francs. We are used to letting our plants to rich 
 people who give us our money as soon as we ask 
 for it, and this is the fifth time I've been here. We 
 working people have our rent to pay and I am 
 hardly any better off than you. My wife, who 
 supplied you with milk and eggs, won't come this 
 morning: you owe her thirty francs, and she prefers 
 not to come rather than worry you about the money, 
 for she's a kind-hearted creature, is my wife! If I 
 listened to her, business wouldn't be possible. 
 That's the reason I come, for I can't hear with that 
 ear, you understand?" 
 
 At that moment Auguste came out, dressed in a 
 shabby green coat and cotton trousers of the same 
 color, a black cravat and badly worn boots. His 
 clothes, although carefully brushed, betrayed the 
 last degree of destitution, for they were too short 
 and too tight, so that he seemed likely to split 
 them at every movement. The white seams, the 
 shrivelled edges, the torn buttonholes displayed to 
 the least practised eye, despite the neat patches, 
 the ignoble stamp of poverty. That livery of want 
 contrasted strangely with the blooming youth of 
 Auguste, who walked away, munching a piece of 
 stale bread, upon which his fine, strong teeth left
 
 266 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 their mark. He breakfasted thus on his way from 
 Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse to Rue Saint- Jacques, 
 holding his books and papers under his arm, his 
 superb dark hair peeping out from beneath his cap, 
 which was too small for his noble head. 
 
 As he passed his grandfather he exchanged with 
 him a swift, pitifully sad glance, for he saw that he 
 was confronted by an almost insurmountable diffi- 
 culty, whose consequences were most deplorable. 
 To make room for the student of philosophy, the 
 gardener stepped back to Godefroid's door; and just 
 as he reached the threshold, Nepomucene blocked 
 up the landing with a load of wood, so that the 
 creditor stepped into the room and to the window. 
 
 "Monsieur Bernard," cried the widow Vauthier, 
 "do you suppose Monsieur Godefroid hired his 
 rooms for you to receive callers in?" 
 
 "Excuse me, madame," said the gardener, "the 
 landing was full " 
 
 "I didn't say that for your benefit, Monsieur 
 Cartier," rejoined the widow. 
 
 "Stay here!" cried Godefroid to the gardener. 
 "And if it is more convenient for you, my dear 
 neighbor," he added, looking at Monsieur Bernard, 
 who seemed entirely insensible to the despicable 
 insult, "to talk with your gardener in this room, 
 come in." 
 
 The tall old man, dazed with grief, cast a glance 
 at Godefroid, expressive of untold gratitude. 
 
 "And as for you, my dear Madame Vauthier, be 
 less rude to monsieur, in the first place because he's
 
 THE NOVICE 267 
 
 an old man, and in the second place, because you 
 owe it to him that I am your tenant." 
 
 "Nonsense!" cried the widow. 
 
 "And then, if people who aren't rich don't help 
 one another, who will help them? Leave us, 
 Madame Vauthier; I will kindle my fire myself. 
 Just have my wood put in your cellar, I think you 
 will take good care of it." 
 
 Madame Vauthier disappeared: for Godefroid, by 
 giving her wood to store, had furnished rich pastur- 
 age for her avidity. 
 
 "Come in here, gentlemen," said Godefroid, 
 making a sign to the gardener and placing two 
 chairs for him and his debtor. 
 
 The old man remained standing but the gardener 
 sat down. 
 
 "Now, my dear man," continued Godefroid, 
 "the rich people don't pay as regularly as you say, 
 and you ought not to worry a worthy man for a few 
 louis. Monsieur receives his pension every six 
 months, and he can't assign it to you for such a 
 paltry sum; but I will advance the money if you 
 insist upon it." 
 
 "Monsieur Bernard received his pension money 
 three weeks ago, and he didn't pay me. I should be 
 sorry to cause him any trouble " 
 
 "Let us see! you have been furnishing him plants 
 since " 
 
 "For six years, monsieur, and he always paid me 
 promptly." 
 
 Monsieur Bernard, who was listening intently to
 
 268 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 what was taking place in his own room, and not to 
 this discussion, heard shrieks through the partition, 
 and he hurried away in dire alarm, without speaking. 
 
 "Come, come, my good man, bring some pretty 
 flowers, your prettiest flowers, to Monsieur Bernard 
 this morning, and let your wife send some fresh eggs 
 and milk; I will pay you to-night, myself." 
 
 Cartier looked at Godefroid with a curious ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "I suppose you know more about them than 
 Madame Vauthier, who sent word to me to bestir 
 myself if I wanted to be paid," he said. "Neither 
 she nor I, monsieur, can understand why people 
 who live on bread, who pick up bean-pods, and the 
 parings of carrots, turnips and potatoes at restaurant 
 doors, yes, monsieur, I saw the young fellow with 
 a basket he was filling why such people should 
 spend nearly a hundred francs a month on flowers. 
 They say that the old man's pension is only three 
 thousand francs." 
 
 "At all events," said Godefroid, "it isn't for 
 you to complain because they ruin themselves in 
 flowers." 
 
 "Of course not, monsieur, provided I am paid." 
 
 "Bring me your bill." 
 
 "Very well, monsieur," said the gardener, with a 
 suggestion of respect. "I suppose monsieur wishes 
 to see the lady who is kept hidden?" 
 
 "Be quiet, my good friend, you forget yourself!" 
 retorted Godefroid dryly. "Return home, select 
 your finest plants to replace those you are to take
 
 THE NOVICE 269 
 
 away. If you can supply me with sweet cream and 
 fresh eggs, you shall have my custom, and I will 
 come and look over your place this morning." 
 
 "It is one of the finest in Paris, monsieur, and I 
 exhibit at the Luxembourg. My garden, which 
 contains three acres, is on the boulevard, behind the 
 garden of the Grande Ckaum&re." 
 
 "Very good, Monsieur Cartier. You are, I should 
 judge, richer than I am. Be considerate to us, for 
 who knows that we shall not need one another's 
 help some day?" 
 
 The gardener took his leave, sorely perplexed as 
 to who Godefroid might be. 
 
 "And I was like that once!" said Godefroid to him- 
 self as he kindled his fire. "What a perfect model 
 of the bourgeois of to-day! gossipy, inquisitive, con- 
 sumed with the idea of equality, eager for custom, 
 angry because he doesn't know why an invalid 
 stays in her room and does not show herself; 
 anxious to conceal his wealth, and yet vain enough 
 to display it so that he can hold himself above his 
 neighbor. The fellow must be at least a lieutenant 
 in his company. How easily the scene of Monsieur 
 Dimanche is played, at all times! Another moment 
 and I should have made a friend of Sieur Cartier." 
 
 The tall old man interrupted Godefroid's soliloquy, 
 which shows how his ideas had changed in four 
 months. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, neighbor," said Monsieur 
 Bernard, in a troubled voice, "I see that you have 
 sent the gardener away contented, for he bowed
 
 270 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 politely to me. In very truth, young man, Provi- 
 dence seems to have sent you here expressly for 
 our benefit, just at the moment when we were 
 about to succumb. Alas! that man's indiscretion 
 has enabled you to guess many things. It is true 
 that I received my half-yearly pension a fortnight 
 ago, but I had debts more pressing than his, and I 
 had to reserve enough for our rent or else be turned 
 out. You, to whom I have confided my daughter's 
 condition, and who have heard her " 
 
 He looked anxiously at Godefroid, who made a 
 sign of assent. 
 
 "Very well, judge for yourself if it would not be a 
 death-blow to her for I should have to put her in a 
 hospital! My grandson and I dreaded this morning, 
 but it was not Cartier that we feared most, it was 
 the cold" 
 
 "I have wood, my dear Monsieur Bernard, take 
 some," said Godefroid. 
 
 "How can I ever repay such services?" cried the 
 old man. 
 
 "By accepting them without ceremony," replied 
 Godefroid eagerly, "and by having full confidence 
 in me." 
 
 "But what claim have I to such generous treat- 
 ment?" asked Monsieur Bernard, distrustful once 
 more. "My pride and my grandson's are crushed !" 
 he cried, "for we have already stooped to explain 
 our position to the two or three creditors we have. 
 The unfortunate have no creditors; for that, one 
 must have a.certain external splendor that we have
 
 THE NOVICE 271 
 
 lost. But I haven't yet abdicated my reason and 
 my common sense," he added, as if he were speak- 
 ing to himself. 
 
 "Monsieur," replied Godefroid gravely, "the 
 story you told me yesterday would have drawn 
 tears from a usurer!" 
 
 "No, no; for Barbet, the bookseller, our landlord, 
 trades on my poverty and employs this Vauthier, 
 his former servant, to spy upon me." 
 
 "How can he trade upon it?" queried Godefroid. 
 
 "I will tell you that later," the old man replied. 
 "My daughter may be cold; I am in a condition to 
 accept alms, even from my worst enemy, and as 
 you are kind enough " 
 
 "I will bring you some wood," said Godefroid, 
 crossing the landing with an armful of sticks which 
 he placed in the first room of the old man's suite. 
 
 Monsieur Bernard took a like amount, and when 
 he saw that little store of fuel, he could not repress 
 the foolish, almost idiotic smile with which people 
 saved from a great danger, which seemed to them 
 inevitable, express their joy for there is still a 
 remnant of terror in it. 
 
 "Accept everything from me without suspicion, 
 my dear Monsieur Bernard, and when your daughter 
 is saved, when you are happy, I will explain it all 
 to you; but until then, let me do as I wish. I went 
 to see Halpersohn, the Jew doctor, but unfortunately 
 he is out of town; he will not return for two 
 days." 
 
 At that moment a ;voice, which seemed to
 
 272 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Godefroid to be and which really was fresh and 
 melodious, cried: "Papa! papa!" in two different 
 keys. 
 
 While talking with the old man, Godefroid had 
 noticed through the cracks in the door opposite the 
 hall door, the white lines of clean, fresh paint, which 
 indicated a vast difference between the invalid's 
 chamber and the other rooms of the suite; but his 
 curiosity, already aroused by that circumstance, was 
 carried to the highest pitch; his charitable mission 
 was no longer aught but a pretext, his object was to 
 see the invalid. He refused to believe that a 
 creature blessed with such a voice could be a loath- 
 some object. 
 
 "You take too much trouble, papa!" said the 
 voice. "Why not have more servants than you 
 have? At your age! Mon Dieu!" 
 
 "You know very well, dear Vanda, that I am not 
 willing that anybody but your son and me should 
 wait on you." 
 
 These two sentences, which Godefroid heard 
 through the door, or rather divined, for the sounds 
 were stifled by a portiere, gave him a glimpse of the 
 truth. It must be that the invalid, surrounded by 
 luxury, was ignorant of the real plight of her father 
 and her son. Monsieur Bernard's silk dressing-gown, 
 the plants and his conversation with Cartier had 
 already aroused some suspicions of the truth in 
 Godefroid's mind, and he stood there, almost dazed 
 by that miracle of paternal love. The contrast 
 between the invalid's room as he imagined it and
 
 THE NOVICE 273 
 
 the balance of the suite, was startling! Let the 
 reader judge. 
 
 Through the door of the third room, which the 
 old man had left partly open, Godefroid saw two 
 twin cots of painted wood, like those used in the 
 meanest boarding-houses, provided with a straw 
 pallet and a thin mattress over which there was but 
 one coverlid. A small cast-iron stove, like those 
 upon which concierges do their cooking, in front of 
 which lay several squares of peat, would have 
 demonstrated Monsieur Bernard's destitution, even 
 without the other details, all of which were in 
 harmony with that horrible stove. 
 
 Stepping nearer to the door, Godefroid saw some 
 earthenware of the sort used in the poorest house- 
 holds; bowls of glazed clay in which potatoes were 
 swimming in dirty water. Two stained tables, 
 laden with papers and books, stood in front of the 
 window looking on Rue Notre-Dame des Champs 
 and told of the nocturnal occupations of the father 
 and son. On the two tables there were two 
 wrought-iron candlesticks such as the poor com- 
 monly use, and in them Godefroid spied candles 
 of the cheapest sort, that is to say the sort of which 
 there are eight to the pound. 
 
 On a third table, used as a kitchen table, gleamed 
 two plates and a small spoon of silver-gilt, plates, a 
 bowl and cups of Sevres porcelain, a knife with one 
 steel and one silver blade in its case, in a word, the 
 invalid's service. 
 
 There was a fire in the stove and the water in the 
 18
 
 274 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 kettle was steaming feebly. A wardrobe of painted 
 wood doubtless contained linen and wearing apparel 
 belonging to Monsieur Bernard's daughter, for 
 Godefroid saw the clothes the old man had taken 
 off the night before, lying across his bed as a 
 covering for his feet. 
 
 Other garments similarly placed on the grandson's 
 bed justified the presumption that their whole 
 wardrobe was there; and Godefroid saw shoes 
 under the bed. The floor, evidently swept but 
 seldom, resembled the floor of a class-room in a 
 boarding-school. A six-pound loaf, partly eaten, 
 lay on a shelf over the table. In a word, it was 
 poverty in its last stage, poverty reduced to a 
 method, with the unattractive neatness indicative of 
 a determination to endure; hurried poverty that 
 would and ought but cannot do everything, and 
 which therefore uses all its poor belongings in 
 unforeseen ways. A strong, unpleasant odor 
 exhaled from that infrequently cleansed room. 
 
 The reception-room, where Godefroid was wait- 
 ing, was at least decent, and he guessed that it was 
 meant to conceal the horrors of the room in which 
 the grandfather and grandson lived. The walls 
 were hung with a figured paper after the style of a 
 Scotch plaid; the room was furnished with four 
 walnut chairs and a small table, and decorated with 
 the colored engraving of Horace Vernet's portrait 
 of the Emperor, with a portrait of Louis XVIII. and 
 of Charles X. and Prince Poniatowski, presumably 
 a friend of Monsieur Bernard's father-in-law. At
 
 THE NOVICE 275 
 
 the window were calico curtains with a red border 
 and fringe. 
 
 Godefroid, who was on the watch for Nepo- 
 mucene, heard him coming up with a bundle of 
 wood and motioned to him to deposit it quietly in 
 Monsieur Bernard's reception-room, and with a 
 thoughtfulness that denoted considerable progress 
 in the novice, he closed the door of the kennel, so 
 that the widow Vauthier's servant should know 
 nothing of the old man's distress. 
 
 The reception-room contained three jardinieres 
 full of the most superb flowers; two of them were 
 oblong and one round, they were all made of violet 
 wood and were very handsome; and Nepomucene, 
 after he had placed the wood on the floor, could not 
 refrain from exclaiming: 
 
 "Ain't they pretty? They must have cost 
 a lot!" 
 
 "Don't make so much noise, Jean!" cried 
 Monsieur Bernard. 
 
 "Do you hear?" Nepomucene asked Godefroid. 
 "The old fellow's cracked, for sure!" 
 
 "Do you know what you will be at his age?" 
 
 "Oh! yes, I know," Nepomucene replied, "I 
 shall be in a sugar-bowl." 
 
 "In a sugar-bowl?" 
 
 "Yes, they'll have made bone-black with my 
 bones, I s'pose. I've often seen the refinery wagons 
 come to Montsouris to get bone-black for their 
 factories, and they told me they used it to make 
 sugar."
 
 276 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 With that philosophical reply he went down after 
 another load. 
 
 Godefroid discreetly closed Monsieur Bernard's 
 door and left him alone with his daughter. Madame 
 Vauthier, who meanwhile had prepared her new 
 lodger's breakfast, came up to serve it, assisted by 
 Felicite. Godefroid, lost in thought, was gazing at 
 the fire on his hearth. He was absorbed in the 
 contemplation of that misery which included so 
 many different forms of misery, but in which he 
 caught a glimpse too of the ineffable joy of the 
 constant triumphs won by filial and paternal love. 
 It was like pearls scattered upon sack-cloth. 
 
 "What works of the imagination, even the most 
 famous, are equal to these realities?" he said to 
 himself. "What a noble life is that in which one 
 espouses such lives as these, in which the mind 
 seeks their causes and effects and makes them run 
 more smoothly, soothes their pain and helps them 
 to attain happiness! To make one's self familiar with 
 misery, to learn the secrets of such households! To 
 be a constant actor in the ever-recurring dramas 
 which famous authors depict for us so entertainingly! 
 I did not believe that doing good was more alluring 
 than vice." 
 
 "Is monsieur satisfied?" queried Madame Vau- 
 thier, who, with Felicite's assistance, had moved 
 the table near to where Godefroid was standing. 
 
 Godefroid thereupon perceived a cup of excellent 
 cafe au lait, accompanied by a smoking omelet, fresh 
 butter and little rosy radishes.
 
 THE NOVICE 277 
 
 "Where the devil did you fish up those radishes?" 
 asked Godefroid. 
 
 "Monsieur Cartier gave them to me," she replied; 
 "I give monsieur the benefit of them." 
 
 "What do you charge for such a breakfast as this 
 every day?" 
 
 "Dame, monsieur, be fair with me: it is very hard 
 to furnish it for thirty sous." 
 
 "Thirty sous it is!" said Godefroid; "but how 
 does it happen that they charge only forty-five 
 francs a month for dinners at Madame Machillot's, 
 close by? that makes thirty sous a day." 
 
 "Oh! but what a difference there is, monsieur, 
 between preparing a dinner for fifteen and buying 
 everything you need for just one breakfast! See, 
 a small loaf, eggs, butter, sugar, milk, coffee and 
 making the fire. Just think, they ask sixteen sous 
 for just a cup of cafe au lait on Place de 1'Odeon, 
 and you give the waiter one or two sous! Here, 
 you have nothing to disturb you; you breakfast at 
 home, in your slippers." 
 
 "Very well, it's all right," said Godefroid. 
 
 "If it wasn't for Madame Cartier, who supplies 
 me with milk and eggs and herbs, I couldn't do it. 
 You must go and see their place, monsieur. Ah! 
 it's something fine! They keep five boys at work 
 in the garden, and Nepomucene goes there to draw 
 water all summer; they let it to me for watering 
 They make lots of money on melons and straw- 
 berries You seem to be much interested in 
 Monsieur Bernard, monsieur?" observed the widow
 
 278 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Vauthier in honeyed tones; "to make yourself 
 responsible for their debts like that! Perhaps 
 monsieur doesn't know all they owe. There's the 
 lady who keeps the bookstall on Place Saint-Michel, 
 she comes here every three or four days for thirty 
 francs, and she needs it too. God of Gods! how 
 the poor sick lady reads! She reads and reads! 
 You can see yourself, thirty francs in three months 
 at two sous the volume." 
 
 "That's a hundred volumes a month!" cried 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "Ah! there goes the old man out to get madame's 
 cream and bread!" continued Widow Vauthier. "The 
 cream's for her tea, for the lady lives on nothing 
 but tea! she takes it twice a day, and twice a week 
 she has to have sweets. She's a dainty one! The 
 old man buys cakes and pies for her at the pastry- 
 cook's on Rue de Buci. When she's in question, 
 he doesn't stop at anything. He says she's his 
 daughter! Not often a man does all he does, at 
 his age, for his daughter! He's killing himself, he 
 and his Auguste, for her. Is monsieur like me? 
 I'd give twenty francs to see her. Monsieur Berton 
 says she's a monstrosity, a thing to exhibit for 
 money. They did well to come to a quarter like 
 ours where there isn't anybody. By the way, does 
 monsieur intend to dine at Madame Machillot's?" 
 
 "Yes, I intend to make an arrangement with 
 her." 
 
 "I don't say it to make you change your mind, 
 monsieur; but as eating-houses go, you'd do better
 
 THE NOVICE 279 
 
 to go and dine on Rue de Tournon; you wouldn't 
 be bound for a month and you'd get a better 
 dinner." 
 
 "Where do you say, Rue de Tournon?" 
 
 "At Mere Girard's successor's. The gentlemen 
 upstairs often go there and they like it oh! you 
 wouldn't believe how much they like it." 
 
 "Very well, Mere Vauthier, I'll follow your advice 
 and go there to dine." 
 
 "My dear monsieur," said the concierge, embold- 
 ened by the good-humored air that Godefroid 
 designedly adopted, "tell me honestly if you're 
 enough of a gull to think of paying Monsieur 
 Bernard's debts? I should be very sorry to hear it; 
 for just think, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, he's 
 almost seventy, and after he's dead and gone, 
 good-bye, pension! And what will there be to repay 
 you? Young men are very imprudent! Do you 
 know that he owes more than a thousand crowns?" 
 
 "To whom?" Godefroid asked. 
 
 "Oh! to whom? that's none of my business," re- 
 plied Dame Vauthier mysteriously; "it's enough that 
 he owes it, and between you and me he's in a tight 
 place, for he can't get trusted for a farthing in the 
 quarter, on that account." 
 
 "A thousand crowns!" Godefroid repeated; "you 
 need have no fear, if I had a thousand crowns I 
 should not be a tenant of yours. You see, I can't 
 bear to see others suffer, and for the few hundred 
 francs it will cost me, I shall know that my neighbor 
 a man with gray hairs! has bread and wood.
 
 280 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 What does it amount to? a man often loses as much 
 at cards. But three thousand francs good God! 
 think of it!" 
 
 Mere Vauthier, misled by Godefroid's pretended 
 frankness, allowed a smile of satisfaction to appear 
 upon her insipid face, and thereby confirmed her 
 tenant's suspicions. Godefroid was convinced that 
 the old woman was an accomplice in a plot against 
 poor Monsieur Bernard. 
 
 "It's strange, monsieur, what ideas a body does 
 get in her head! You'll tell me that I am very 
 inquisitive, but when I saw you talking with 
 Monsieur Bernard yesterday, I fancied that you 
 were a bookseller's clerk, for this is the quarter for 
 them. I used to have a proof-reader from a printing- 
 office on Rue de Vaugirard, and he had the same 
 name as you." 
 
 "How does my profession concern you?" said 
 Godefroid. 
 
 "Bah! whether you tell me or don't tell me, I 
 shall find out all the same," retorted Dame Vauthier. 
 "Take Monsieur Bernard for example, for eighteen 
 months I had no idea who he was: but the nine- 
 teenth month I succeeded in discovering that he'd 
 been a magistrate, a judge or something to do with 
 the law, and that he writes about the law. What 
 does he earn at it? I can tell him! And if he had 
 trusted me, I'd 'a' held my tongue. There!" 
 
 "I am not a publisher's clerk yet, but perhaps I 
 shall be soon." 
 
 "I suspected as much!" said the widow Vauthier
 
 THE NOVICE 28l 
 
 eagerly, turning away from the bed she was making 
 in order to have a pretext for remaining with her 
 tenant. "You have come to cut the grass from 
 under the feet of Good ! a man warned is as good 
 as two " 
 
 "Stop there!" cried Godefroid, planting himself 
 between the Vauthier and the door. "Come, what 
 interest do they give you in this business?" 
 
 "Well! well!" rejoined the old woman with a 
 leer, "you're a sharp one, on my word!" 
 
 She went and bolted the door of the outer room, 
 then returned and seated herself in a chair by the fire. 
 
 "On my honor, as sure as my name's Vauthier, 
 I took you for a student until I saw you giving your 
 wood to Pere Bernard. Ah! you're a sly dog! 
 On my word, what an actor you are! I took you 
 for a gull! Come, will you promise me a thousand 
 francs? As true as the sun is shining, my old 
 Barbet and Monsieur Metivier have promised me 
 five hundred francs to keep an eye on the grain." 
 
 "They! five hundred francs! nonsense!" cried 
 Godefroid; "two hundred at most, mother, and 
 only promised at that; and you don't dare assign 
 them! If you should put me in the way to do the 
 business they want to do with Monsieur Bernard, I 
 would give four hundred francs! Tell me, how do 
 they stand?" 
 
 "Why, they have given him fifteen hundred 
 francs on his book, and the old man has given them 
 a bond for a thousand crowns. They doled it out 
 to him a hundred francs at a time arranging matters
 
 282 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 so as to leave him in poverty. They're the ones 
 who set the creditors on him, they sent Cartier 
 here for certain " 
 
 At that, Godefroid cast a shrewdly ironical glance 
 at Dame Vauthier, which showed her that he under- 
 stood the r61e she was playing for the benefit of her 
 landlord. 
 
 That last phrase was a twofold source of enlighten- 
 ment to him, for the strange conversation he had 
 had with the gardener was explained by it. 
 
 "Oh!" she continued, "they've got him; for 
 where can he ever get a thousand crowns? They 
 mean to offer him five hundred francs on the day 
 he turns the book over to them, and five hundred 
 francs for every volume offered for sale. The 
 business is done in the name of a bookseller that 
 those two gentlemen have set up in business on 
 Quai des Augustins." 
 
 "Oho! little?" 
 
 "Yes, that's the man, Morand, monsieur's old 
 clerk. It seems there's a lot of money to be made." 
 
 "Oh! there's a lot of money to be sunk," said 
 Godefroid, with a knowing wink. 
 
 There was a gentle tap at the door, and Gode- 
 froid, well pleased at the interruption, went and 
 opened it. 
 
 "What is said is said, Mere Vauthier," he 
 remarked, as he saw that his visitor was Monsieur 
 Bernard. 
 
 "I have a letter for you, Monsieur Bernard," 
 cried the woman.
 
 THE NOVICE 283 
 
 The old man went down two or three stairs. 
 
 "Well no, I haven't any letter, Monsieur Bernard. 
 I simply wanted to tell you to mistrust that little 
 fellow, he's a publisher." 
 
 "Ah! that explains everything!" said the old 
 man to himself. 
 
 And he returned to his neighbor's room with a 
 completely changed expression. 
 
 The cold tranquillity of Monsieur Bernard's feat- 
 ures contrasted so strangely with the affable, ex- 
 pansive manner with which he had expressed his 
 gratitude, that Godefroid was impressed by such a 
 sudden transformation. 
 
 "I beg your pardon for disturbing you, monsieur; 
 but you have overwhelmed me with kindness since 
 yesterday, and the benefactor imposes obligations 
 upon his debtor." 
 
 Godefroid bowed. 
 
 "For five years past I have suffered the passion 
 of Jesus Christ every fortnight! for thirty-six years 
 I represented society, the government; I was in 
 those days the public vengeance, and as you can 
 imagine, I lost all my illusions yes, I have nothing 
 but sorrows now: being what I am, monsieur, the 
 consideration you showed in closing the door of the 
 kennel in which my grandson and I sleep that 
 trivial act was to me the glass of water of which 
 Bossuet speaks. Yes, I found once more in my 
 heart in this exhausted heart, which no longer has 
 any tears to shed, as my body no longer has any 
 sweat I found the last drop of that elixir which, in
 
 284 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 youth, makes us look upon the bright side of all 
 human actions, and I came to offer you this hand, 
 which I give to no one but my daughter; I came to 
 bring you the divine rose of belief in good " 
 
 "Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid, remember- 
 ing the excellent Alain's lessons, "I have done 
 nothing with the object of earning your gratitude. 
 You are mistaken in that." 
 
 "Ah! that is frankness!" replied the ex-magistrate. 
 "I am pleased to see it. I was about to reprove 
 you forgive me! I esteem you. So you are a 
 publisher, and you have come to deprive the Barbet, 
 Metivier, Morand people of my work? That ex- 
 plains everything. You make advances to me as 
 they have done; but you do it in a pleasant 
 way." 
 
 " Was it the Vauthier who told you that I am a 
 publisher's clerk?" Godefroid asked the old man. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Bernard, if you wish to know 
 what I can give you above what those gentlemen 
 offer you, you must tell me what conditions you 
 have made with them." 
 
 . "That is fair," replied the ex-magistrate, who 
 seemed delighted to find himself the object of a 
 rivalry by which he could not fail to gain. "Do 
 you know what the work is?" 
 
 "No, I simply know that there's money in it." 
 
 "It is only half-past nine, my daughter has had 
 her breakfast, my grandson Auguste doesn't come 
 home until quarter to eleven, Cartier will not bring
 
 THE NOVICE 285 
 
 the plants for an hour: we have time to talk a 
 little. Monsieur monsieur ?" 
 
 "Godefroid." 
 
 "Monsieur Godefroid, the work in question was 
 conceived by me in 1825, at the time when the 
 ministry, impelled by the persistent division of large 
 estates, proposed the law, which was rejected, 
 concerning the right of primogeniture. I had noticed 
 certain imperfections in our codes and in the basic 
 institutions of France. Our codes have been the 
 subject of valuable treatises; but all those treatises 
 were jurisprudence pure and simple; no one had 
 dared to consider the work of the Revolution, or of 
 Napoleon if you please, in its entirety, to study 
 the spirit of those laws, to criticise them in their 
 application. That is the main idea of my work; it 
 is entitled provisionally: Esprit des Lois Nouvelles; 
 it embraces the organic laws as well as the codes, 
 all the codes, for we have many more than five 
 codes: my book is in five volumes, with a volume 
 of citations, notes and references. I still have three 
 months' work upon it. The proprietor of this house, 
 once a publisher, divined, scented the speculation 
 from some questions I asked him. For my own 
 part, I thought originally of nothing but the welfare 
 of my country. This Barbet circumvented me. 
 You will wonder how a bookseller could succeed in 
 bedeviling an old magistrate; but you know my 
 story, monsieur, and that man is a usurer; he has 
 the keen glance and the shrewdness of his trade. 
 His money has always trodden close on my needs.
 
 286 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 He has always been at hand on the day when 
 despair made me defenceless." 
 
 "Of course, my dear monsieur," said Godefroid; 
 "he has an excellent spy in Mere Vauthier. But 
 the conditions? come, tell me plainly what they 
 are." 
 
 "They have lent me fifteen hundred francs 
 represented to-day by three notes of hand for a 
 thousand francs each, and those three thousand 
 francs are secured by an agreement concerning the 
 ownership of my work, which I cannot dispose of 
 unless I first pay the notes, and the notes are 
 protested and have gone to judgment. There, 
 monsieur, are the complications brought about by 
 want. At the very lowest estimate, the first edition 
 of that vast work, the result of ten years of toil and 
 thirty-six years of experience, would be worth ten 
 thousand francs. Well, five days ago Morand 
 offered me a thousand crowns and my three notes 
 for the absolute title. As I have no means of 
 procuring three thousand two hundred and forty 
 francs, I must submit to their terms, unless you 
 interpose between them and me. They are not 
 satisfied with my honor; they insisted, for greater 
 security, upon having the notes protested and an 
 order of arrest issued thereon. If I pay them, the 
 usurers will have doubled their money; if I make a 
 bargain with them, they will have a fortune, for 
 one of them is a former paper manufacturer, and 
 God knows how far they can cut down the cost of 
 manufacture. And, as they have my name, they
 
 THE NOVICE 287 
 
 know that the sale of ten thousand copies is 
 assured." 
 
 "What, monsieur, you, a former magistrate ?" 
 
 "What would you have? not a friend! not a 
 memory to invoke! And I have saved many heads, 
 if I have caused the fall of many! And then my 
 daughter, my daughter, whose nurse I am and 
 faithful companion, for I work only at night! Ah! 
 young man, only the unfortunate are fitted to be 
 judges of misery. To-day it seems to me that I was 
 formerly too harsh." 
 
 "I do not ask your name, monsieur. I have not 
 a thousand crowns at my disposal, especially after 
 paying Halpersohn and your small debts; but I will 
 save you, if you will promise me not to dispose of 
 your book until I am notified; for it is impossible to 
 transact an affair of such importance without 
 consulting those who are in the business. My 
 employers are people of influence, and I can promise 
 you success, if you can promise me absolute secrecy, 
 even with your children, and hold to your promise." 
 
 "The only success I care to attain is my poor 
 Vanda's restoration to health; for, monsieur, such 
 suffering extinguishes every other sentiment in a 
 father's heart, and love of renown is nothing to him 
 who sees the open grave." 
 
 "I will come to see you this evening. Halper- 
 sohn is expected at any moment, and I have deter- 
 mined to go every day and see if he has arrived. 
 I propose to employ the whole of this day in your 
 service."
 
 288 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Ah! if you should be responsible for my 
 daughter's cure, monsieur monsieur, I would be 
 glad to make you a present of my work!" 
 
 "Monsieur," said Godefroid, "I am not a book- 
 seller." 
 
 The old man made a gesture of astonishment. 
 
 "What would you have had me do? I allowed the 
 old Vauthier to think that I was, so that I could ascer- 
 tain what traps were laid for you." 
 
 "What are you then?" 
 
 "Godefroid!" the novice replied. "And as you 
 consent to allow me to furnish you with the means 
 of living more bountifully, you may call me Gode- 
 froid de Bouillon," he added, with a smile. 
 
 The ex-magistrate was too deeply moved to 
 laugh at the jest. He held out his hand and pressed 
 the hand his neighbor gave him. 
 
 "You propose to remain incognito?" said the old 
 man, gazing at Godefroid with an expression of 
 melancholy mingled with uneasiness. 
 
 "Permit me to do so." 
 
 "Very well, as you choose! And come this 
 evening; you shall see my daughter, if her condition 
 makes it possible." 
 
 That was evidently the greatest concession the 
 poor father could make; and, from the grateful 
 glance that Godefroid bestowed upon him, he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing that he was understood. 
 
 An hour later Cartier arrived with some beautiful 
 plants, replenished the jardinieres himself and put 
 fresh moss in them, and Godefroid paid the bill, as
 
 THE NOVICE 289 
 
 well as the note due at the book stall, which was 
 sent a few moments after. Books and flowers were 
 the daily bread of the poor, sick, we ought rather 
 to say tortured woman, who was content with so 
 little food.
 
 * 
 
 As he thought of that family writhing in the coils 
 of misfortune, like Laocoon's that sublime image 
 of so many lives! Godefroid, walking toward Rue 
 Marbeuf, felt in his heart even .niore curiosity than 
 benevolence. That invalid surrounded with luxury 
 in the midst of ghastly poverty caused him to forget 
 the shocking details of the most extraordinary of 
 nervous affections, which very luckily is of most 
 infrequent occurrence, although mentioned by some 
 historians; one of our most gossipy chroniclers, 
 Tallemant des Reaux, cites an instance of it. We 
 love to think of women as elegant and refined even 
 in their most terrible suffering: and so Godefroid 
 anticipated a sort of pleasure in being admitted to 
 that room, which none but the physicians, the 
 father and the son had entered for six years. He 
 ended however by rebuking himself for his curiosity. 
 Novice as he was, he realized that that very natural 
 sentiment would eventually die away as he con- 
 tinued to exercise his charitable ministry, and to see 
 other homes, other sorrows. 
 
 One does in fact attain at last the divine loving- 
 kindness, which is surprised at nothing, just as in 
 love one attains the stage of sublime tranquillity, 
 sure of the strength and enduring quality of the 
 sentiment, by constant familiarity with its pains and 
 its pleasures. 
 
 (291)
 
 2Q2 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Godefroid learned that Halpersohn had returned 
 home during the night; but in the morning he had 
 been obliged to take his carriage and visit his 
 patients, who were waiting for him. The concierge 
 told Godefroid to come the next day before nine 
 o'clock. 
 
 Remembering Monsieur Alain's injunctions as to 
 the parsimony which must govern his personal 
 expenditures, Godefroid dined for twenty-five sous 
 on Rue de Tournon, and was rewarded for his 
 self-abnegation by finding himself surrounded by 
 compositors and proof-readers. He overheard a dis- 
 cussion, in which he took part, as to the price of 
 making books, and he learned that an octavo 
 volume, composed of forty sheets, of which a thou- 
 sand copies were printed, did not cost more than 
 thirty sous per copy, under the most favorable con- 
 ditions. He determined to go about and ascertain 
 the prices at which publishers of law-books sold 
 their volumes, in order to be prepared to carry on a 
 discussion with the publishers who had Monsieur 
 Bernard in their clutches, if he should fall in with 
 them. 
 
 About seven o'clock in the evening he returned 
 to Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse through Rue de 
 Vaugirard, Rue Madame and Rue de 1'Ouest, and he 
 realized how deserted the neighborhood was, for he 
 did not see a single person. To be sure it was 
 bitter cold, the snow was falling in huge flakes and 
 the carriages made no sound on the pavements. 
 
 "Ah! there you are, monsieur!" said the widow
 
 THE NOVICE 293 
 
 Vauthier, as Godefroid appeared; "if I had known 
 you'd be home so early, I'd have made a fire." 
 
 "It's not necessary," said Godefroid, seeing that 
 the woman was following him; "I shall pass the 
 evening with Monsieur Bernard." 
 
 "Oho! you must be his cousin then, to be hand 
 and glove with him the second day. I thought 
 monsieur would finish the conversation we began." 
 
 "Oh yes! the four hundred francs!" said Gode- 
 froid in an undertone. "Look you, Mamma Vau- 
 thier, you could have had them to-night if you 
 hadn't said anything to Monsieur Bernard. You try 
 to kill two birds with one stone, and you miss both 
 of them; for, so far as I am concerned, you gave me 
 away, my affair has fallen through." 
 
 "Don't think that, my dear monsieur. To-mor- 
 row, while you're eating your breakfast " 
 
 "Oh! to-morrow I am going away at daybreak, 
 like your authors upstairs." 
 
 Godefroid's previous experiences, his life as a 
 man of fashion and a journalist, had served him in 
 good stead, in that he had acquired sufficient 
 shrewdness to see that, if he acted otherwise, 
 Barbet's accomplice would go to warn the ex- 
 publisher that there was some danger ahead, and 
 that proceedings would be begun in such a way as 
 to deprive Monsieur Bernard of his liberty in short 
 order; whereas, if that trio of grasping usurers were 
 given to understand that their combination was in 
 no danger of shipwreck, they would remain quiet. 
 But Godefroid did not as yet know Parisian nature
 
 2Q4 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 when disguised in the garb of a widow Vauthier. 
 The woman proposed to obtain Godefroid's money 
 and her landlord's as well. She hurried away at 
 once to her Monsieur Barbet, while Godefroid was 
 changing his clothes preparatory to calling upon 
 Monsieur Bernard's daughter. 
 
 The clock on the Convent of the Visitation, the 
 public clock of the quarter, was striking eight when 
 the curiosity-ridden Godefroid knocked softly at his 
 neighbor's door. It was opened by Auguste, who 
 had the evening to himself, it being a Saturday. 
 He was dressed in a short black velvet coat, black 
 velvet trousers of neat appearance and a blue silk 
 cravat; but Godefroid's amazement at seeing the 
 young man in such different guise, suddenly ceased 
 when he found himself in the invalid's room: he 
 realized how necessary it was that both father and 
 son should be well dressed. 
 
 In truth, the contrast between the wretchedness 
 of the room he had seen in the morning and the 
 sumptuousness of this other room was so great that 
 Godefroid was inevitably dazzled by it, although he 
 was accustomed to the luxurious and refined sur- 
 roundings of wealth. 
 
 The walls, hung with yellow silk relieved by 
 bright green fringe, imparted an air of gayety, so 
 to speak, to the room, the floor of which was 
 concealed by a flowered moquette carpet with a 
 white ground. The two windows, hung with beau- 
 tiful double curtains of white silk, formed two 
 lovely gardens, as it were, the jardinieres were so
 
 THE NOVICE 295 
 
 abundantly filled. All this magnificence, so rare in 
 that quarter, was hidden from the outside world by 
 close blinds. The woodwork was painted a pure 
 white, relieved by occasional lines of gold. 
 
 At the door was a heavy embroidered portiere, 
 with a yellow background and fanciful leaves, which 
 shut out all noise from without. That superb 
 portiere was the work of the invalid, who worked 
 like a fairy when she had the use of her hands. 
 
 At the end of the room, opposite the door, was 
 the fireplace, with a mantel-shelf upholstered in 
 green velvet upon which were divers extremely 
 elegant objects of art, the only relics of the opulent 
 days of the two families: a curious clock, an 
 elephant bearing a porcelain tower, filled with a 
 profusion of flowers, two candelabra of the same 
 style, and valuable Chinese ornaments. Fender, 
 fire-dogs, shovel, tongs, all were of the most 
 expensive kind. 
 
 The largest jardiniere stood in the centre of the 
 room, beneath a centre-piece of rose-work from 
 which depended a chandelier of flowered porcelain. 
 
 The bed on which the magistrate's daughter lay 
 was one of the beautiful carved beds, in white and 
 gold, which were made under Louis XV. By the 
 invalid's pillow stood a pretty inlaid table, on which 
 was everything necessary for the comfort of that 
 bedridden life. Against the wall was a candelabrum 
 with two branches, which could be moved forward 
 or back with the slightest touch of the hand. A 
 small table, most conveniently arranged and adapted
 
 296 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 to the wants of the invalid, stood in front of her. 
 The bed, covered with a superb counterpane and 
 hung with curtains caught back by bands of silk, was 
 laden with books and a work-basket; and Godefroid 
 could hardly have distinguished the invalid under 
 all those things, except for the two candles in the 
 movable candlestick. 
 
 There was naught but a very pale face, darkened 
 around the eyes by pain, in which gleamed two 
 flashing eyes, and which displayed, as its principal 
 ornament, a mass of magnificent black hair, of 
 which the numberless carefully-arranged long curls 
 showed that the arrangement and care of her hair 
 occupied the invalid a part of the morning, as was 
 also indicated by a portable mirror at the foot of the 
 bed. 
 
 No one of the modern refinements of luxury was 
 lacking. A few gewgaws, provided for poor 
 Vanda's amusement, proved that that paternal love 
 sometimes reached the point of delirium. 
 
 The old man rose from a superb white and gold 
 Louis XV. couch, upholstered in tapestry, and 
 stepped forward to meet Godefroid, who most 
 assuredly would not have recognized him, for the 
 cold, stern features wore the animated expression 
 peculiar to old men who have retained the nobility 
 of manner and the apparent light-heartedness of the 
 courtier. His puce-colored gown harmonized with 
 his luxurious surroundings, and he took snuff from 
 a gold snuff-box enriched with diamonds! 
 
 "This, my dear child," said Monsieur Bernard to
 
 THE NOVICE 297 
 
 his daughter, taking Godefroid by the hand, "is our 
 neighbor of whom I have told you." 
 
 He motioned to his grandson to bring one of the 
 two easy-chairs, similar to the couch, which stood 
 one on each side of the fireplace. 
 
 "Monsieur's name is Monsieur Godefroid, and he 
 is full of sympathy for us." 
 
 Vanda moved her head in reply to Godefroid's 
 bow; and by the way in which her neck bent for- 
 ward and back, Godefroid saw that all the invalid's 
 life resided in her head. The emaciated arms, the 
 flabby hands lay upon the fine, white sheet, like 
 objects foreign to the body, which seemed to take 
 up no space in the bed. The necessary articles for 
 the invalid's use were behind the headboard of the 
 bed, in a cabinet with a silk curtain. 
 
 "You, monsieur, are the first person, except the 
 doctors, who have ceased to be men in my eyes, 
 whom I have seen for six years; you cannot imagine 
 therefore the interest you have aroused in me since 
 my father told me of your promised visit. No, it 
 was an unmanageable, passionate curiosity, like 
 that felt by our mother Eve. My father, who is so 
 kind to me, my son, whom I love so dearly, are 
 most certainly sufficient to fill the desert of a heart 
 now almost without a body; but that heart continues 
 to be a woman, after all! I realized it from the 
 childish joy that the hope of a visit from you afforded 
 me. You will do me the pleasure of taking a cup 
 of tea with us, won't you?" 
 
 "Monsieur promised me the evening," said the
 
 298 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 old man, with the grace of a millionaire doing the 
 honors of his mansion. 
 
 Auguste was sitting on an embroidered chair, by 
 a little inlaid table with copper ornaments, reading 
 a book by the light of the candles on the mantel. 
 
 "Auguste, my child, tell Jean to come and serve 
 tea in an hour." 
 
 She accompanied the words with a meaning 
 glance, to which Auguste replied by a sign. 
 
 "Would you believe, monsieur, that I have had 
 no other servants than my father and my son for six 
 years, and I could not endure any others now. If 
 they should fail me, I should die. My father won't 
 allow Jean, a poor Norman who has been in our 
 service thirty years, to come into my room." 
 
 "I should think not!" said the old man slyly; 
 "monsieur has seen him; he saws the wood and 
 brings it up, he cooks, he does errands, he wears a 
 dirty apron; he would ruin all these fine things, so 
 necessary in the eyes of my poor daughter, to 
 whom this room is the whole of nature " 
 
 "Ah! madame, monsieur your father is quite 
 right" 
 
 "Why so?" said she. "If Jean had ruined my 
 room, my father would have refurnished it." 
 
 "True, my child; but what deters me from doing 
 it is that you cannot leave it; and you don't know 
 the upholsterers of Paris ! They would take more 
 than three months to refurnish your room. Think 
 of the dust that would come from your carpet if it 
 should be taken up. Let Jean take care of your
 
 THE NOVICE 299 
 
 room! Can you think of such a thing? By taking 
 the minute precautions of which a father and a son 
 are capable, we have spared you the annoyance of 
 sweeping and dust. If Jean should so much as 
 come into the room to wait on us, it would be all 
 over in a month." 
 
 "It isn't from economy," said Godefroid, "it is 
 for the good of your health. Monsieur your father 
 is right." 
 
 "I don't complain," replied Vanda in a coquettish 
 tone. 
 
 Her voice produced the effect of a concert. Mind, 
 movement and life were all concentrated in the 
 voice and the expression; for Vanda, by studies for 
 which she certainly had had abundant time, had 
 succeeded in overcoming the difficulties caused by 
 the loss of her teeth. 
 
 "I am happy still, monsieur, even in the horrible 
 misfortune with which I am afflicted; for abundant 
 means are certainly of great assistance in enduring 
 my suffering. If we had been poor, I should have 
 died eighteen years ago, and I am still alive! I have 
 enjoyments, and they are the keener because they 
 are constant victories over death. You will consider 
 me very talkative!" she added with a smile. 
 
 "Madame," Godefroid replied, "I could entreat 
 you to talk all the time, for I have never heard a 
 voice to be compared to yours it is genuine music! 
 Rubini is not more enchanting " 
 
 "Do not speak of Rubini, of the Italiens," said 
 the old man with a tinge of melancholy in his tone.
 
 300 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Rich as we are, it is impossible for me to afford 
 my daughter, who was a great musician, that 
 pleasure, which she is mad to enjoy." 
 
 "Pardon me," said Godefroid. 
 
 "You will become accustomed to us," said the 
 old man. 
 
 "This is the process," said the invalid with a 
 smile. "When we have cried casse-cou at you 
 several times, you will be familiar with the blind- 
 man's-buff of our conversation." 
 
 Godefroid exchanged a swift glance with Monsieur 
 Bernard, who, seeing tears in his neighbor's eyes, 
 put his finger to his lips to entreat him not to be 
 found wanting in the heroism that he and his 
 grandson had displayed for seven years. 
 
 This sublime, never-ending imposture, evidenced 
 by the absolute illusion of the invalid, produced 
 upon Godefroid the effect of looking down a sheer 
 precipice, which two chamois-hunters were descend- 
 ing with perfect ease. The magnificent gold snuff- 
 box, studded with diamonds, with which the old 
 man carelessly toyed, sitting at the foot of his 
 daughter's bed, was like the stroke of genius in the 
 work of a man of talent, that evokes a cry of 
 admiration. Godefroid looked at the snuff-box, 
 wondering why it was not sold or at the Mont-de- 
 Piete; he determined to mention it to the old man. 
 
 "My daughter was so excited when I told her of 
 your visit this evening, Monsieur Godefroid, that all 
 the extraordinary phenomena of her disease, which 
 have driven us to despair for twelve days past,
 
 THE NOVICE 301 
 
 have completely disappeared. Judge if I am grate- 
 ful to you!" 
 
 "And I!" cried the invalid in a coaxing tone and 
 bending toward him with a movement instinct with 
 coquetry. "To me monsieur is the deputy of 
 society. Since I was twenty years old, monsieur, 
 I have not known what a salon is, an evening party, 
 a ball. And remember that 1 love dancing, that I 
 am wild over the theatre, and that I dote on music 
 above all things. I divine everything by thought! 
 I read much. Then my father tells me what is 
 going on in society." 
 
 As she said that, Godefroid started as if to bend 
 his knee to the poor old man. 
 
 "Yes, when he goes to the Italiens, and he goes 
 very often, he describes the ladies' dresses and the 
 effect the singing produces on him. Oh! I would 
 like to be cured, in the first place on my father's 
 account, for he lives only for me as I live for him 
 and in him; and secondly, for my son, to whom I 
 would like to give a different mother! Ah! monsieur, 
 such accomplished creatures my old father and my 
 excellent son are! I would like my health too, so 
 that I could hear Lablache, Rubini, Tamburini, 
 Grisi and / Puritani. But " 
 
 "Come, come, my child, be calm. If we talk 
 music, we are lost!" said the old man with a 
 smile. 
 
 He smiled, and the smile, which made his face 
 much younger, evidently was always successful in 
 deceiving his daughter.
 
 302 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Well, I will be very good," said Vanda with a 
 rebellious pout; "but give me an accordion." 
 
 That instrument was then newly invented; it 
 could, if desired, be placed on the invalid's bed and 
 required only the pressure of the foot to produce 
 notes like those of the organ. In its most elaborate 
 form it was equal to a piano; but it cost three 
 hundred francs. The invalid, who read the news- 
 papers and reviews, knew of the existence of such an 
 instrument and had longed for one for two months. 
 
 "Yes, madame, you shall have one," Godefroid 
 replied, in obedience to a glance from the old man. 
 "A friend of mine, who is just starting for Algiers, 
 has a fine one which I will borrow; so before pur- 
 chasing one, you will be able to try that. It is 
 possible that the notes, which are very loud and 
 penetrating, will be disagreeable to you " 
 
 "Can I have it to-morrow?" she asked, with the 
 animation of a Creole. 
 
 "To-morrow will be too soon," observed Monsieur 
 Bernard, "besides, to-morrow is Sunday." 
 
 "Ah!" she said, glancing at Godefroid, who 
 fancied that he saw a soul flashing in Vanda's eyes as 
 he watched with admiration her ubiquitous glance. 
 
 Until that moment, Godefroid had known nothing 
 of the power of the voice and eyes, when they have 
 become the whole life. Her glance was no longer 
 a mere glance, it was a flame, or, better still, a 
 divine flash, a sentient beam of life and understand- 
 ing, visible thought! The voice with its ever- 
 varying intonations took the place of movements,
 
 THE NOVICE 303 
 
 gestures, poses of the head. The variations of the 
 complexion, which changed color like the fabulous 
 chameleon, made the illusion, or, if you please, the 
 mirage, complete. That face, drawn by pain, buried 
 in that pillow of fine linen trimmed with lace, was a 
 whole person in itself. 
 
 Never in his life had Godefroid gazed upon such 
 a grand spectacle; his capacity for emotion was 
 hardly sufficient. Another sublime feature for 
 everything was anomalous in that poetic, yet awful 
 state of affairs was this: the mind alone lived in 
 the spectators! That atmosphere, filled with senti- 
 ment exclusively, had a divine influence. One was 
 no more conscious of his body than the sick woman 
 of hers; one seemed to be all mind. By dint of 
 gazing upon that fragile remnant of a pretty woman, 
 Godefroid forgot the numerous luxurious details of 
 the room, he fancied that he was floating through 
 the sky. Not for half an hour did he notice a 
 cabinet filled with curiosities standing beneath a 
 superb portrait which the invalid asked him to 
 examine, for it was a Gericault. 
 
 "Gericault was from Rouen," she said, "and as 
 his family was under some obligations to my father, 
 the first president, he thanked us with that master- 
 piece, in which you see me at the age of sixteen." 
 
 "You have a very beautiful picture," said Gode- 
 froid, "and altogether unknown to those who have 
 studied the exceedingly rare works of that genius." 
 
 "To me," she said, "it is now simply a thing that 
 I am attached to, for I live only through the heart;
 
 304 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 and I have the loveliest life," she added, glancing at 
 her father and putting her whole soul into the glance. 
 "Ah! monsieur, if you knew what my father is! 
 Who could ever believe that that great and stern 
 magistrate, to whom the Emperor was under such 
 great obligations that he gave him that snuff-box, 
 and whom Charles X. attempted to reward with that 
 cabinet of Sevres ware," she said, pointing to the 
 cabinet; "who could believe that that firm upholder 
 of the government and the law, that learned pub- 
 licist, has, in a heart of stone, a mother's softness of 
 heart? Oh! papa! papa! kiss me come, you must 
 come, if you love me!" 
 
 The old man rose, leaned over the bed and kissed 
 the noble, poetic, white brow of his daughter, whose 
 frenzies did not always resemble that tempest of 
 affection. 
 
 The old man walked back and forth; he wore 
 slippers embroidered by his daughter, and he made 
 no sound. 
 
 "What is your business, monsieur?" she asked 
 Godefroid, after a pause. 
 
 "Madame, I am employed by certain devout 
 persons to assist those who are very unfortunate." 
 
 "Ah! what a beautiful mission, monsieur!" she 
 said. "Do you know that I have had an idea 
 of devoting myself to that same calling? But what 
 ideas have I not had?" she continued, with a move- 
 ment of the head. "Pain is like a torch that 
 illumines one's life. So, if I should recover my 
 health"
 
 THE NOVICE 305 
 
 "You would amuse yourself, my child," the old 
 man interrupted. 
 
 "Certainly," she replied, "I long to do it, but 
 shall I be able? My son, I trust, will be a magistrate 
 worthy of his two grandfathers, and he will leave 
 me. What am I to do? If God restores my life, I 
 shall devote it to Him! Oh! but not until I have 
 given you both all that you want of it!" she cried, 
 glancing at her father and her son. "There are 
 moments, father dear, when Monsieur de Maistre's 
 ideas work upon me, and I believe that I am expiat- 
 ing some crime." 
 
 "That's what comes of reading so much!" cried 
 the old man, evidently grieved. 
 
 "That gallant Polish general, my great grand- 
 father, was innocently involved in the partition of 
 Poland." 
 
 "Well, well, now comes Poland!" exclaimed 
 Bernard. 
 
 "What can you expect, papa? my suffering is 
 infernal, it gives me a horror of life, it inspires me 
 with disgust of myself. Well, tell me how I have 
 deserved it? Such diseases are not simply a dis- 
 turbance of the health, the whole organization is 
 perverted, and " 
 
 "Sing the national air your poor mother used to 
 sing; monsieur will like to hear you for I have told 
 him about your voice," said the old man, evidently 
 seeking to divert his daughter's mind from the 
 direction it had taken. 
 
 Vanda began to sing in a low, soft voice, a ballad 
 20
 
 306 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 in the Polish tongue, at which Godefroid was almost 
 dazed with admiration and transfixed with sadness. 
 The melody, which was not unlike the drawling, 
 melancholy airs of Bretagne, was one of those that 
 echo in the heart long after one has ceased to hear 
 them. As he listened to Vanda, Godefroid looked 
 at her, but he could not endure the ecstatic glance 
 of that poor wreck of a woman, almost a madwoman 
 in fact, and he let his eyes rest on the tassels that 
 hung from each corner of the canopy of the bed. 
 
 "Ha! ha!" said Vanda, beginning to laugh at 
 Godefroid's close scrutiny, "you are wondering 
 what those are used for, aren't you?" 
 
 "Vanda! Vanda! be calm, my child! See, here's 
 the tea," said the father. "This is a very expensive 
 machine, monsieur," he said to Godefroid. "My 
 daughter cannot lift herself, nor can she stay in bed 
 unless the bed is made and the sheets changed. 
 These cords pass through pulleys, and by passing 
 under her a square piece of leather with rings at the 
 corners through which those cords are passed, we 
 can raise her without tiring her or ourselves." 
 
 "They raise me!" repeated Vanda wildly. 
 
 Luckily Auguste appeared, bringing a tea-pot, 
 which he placed upon a little table, upon which he 
 placed the Sevres tea service also, together with 
 sandwiches and cakes. Next he brought cream and 
 butter. That sight suddenly produced an entire 
 change in the invalid's symptoms, which had 
 indicated the approach of a nervous attack. 
 
 "See, Vanda, here is Nathan's new novel. If
 
 THE NOVICE 307 
 
 you lie awake to-night, you'll have something to 
 read." 
 
 "La Perle de Doll Ah! that must be a love 
 story. Auguste, do you know, I am to have an 
 accordion?" 
 
 Auguste suddenly raised his head and glanced at 
 his grandfather with a curious expression. 
 
 "See how he loves his mother!" continued 
 Vanda. "Come and kiss me, my little puss. No, 
 you must thank this gentleman and not your grand- 
 father, for our neighbor is going to lend me one 
 to-morrow morning. How is it made, monsieur?" 
 
 At a sign from the old man Godefroid explained 
 the construction of the accordion at length, as he 
 sipped his tea, which was brewed by Auguste, and, 
 being of superior quality, was delicious. 
 
 About half-past ten, the novice retired, weary of 
 contemplating the insane struggle of the father and 
 son, but admiring their heroism and the patience 
 with which day after day they played their double 
 roles, both equally distressing. 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Bernard, following him to 
 his room, "now you understand, monsieur, the life 
 I lead! Every hour I endure the suspense of the 
 robber, listening intently to the slightest sound. A 
 word, a gesture might kill my daughter! A bauble 
 missing from among those she is accustomed to see 
 every day would reveal the whole truth to that 
 mind, which sees through the walls." 
 
 "Monsieur," replied Godefroid, "on Monday, 
 Halpersohn will pass judgment on your daughter,
 
 308 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 for he has returned. I doubt if science can restore 
 her bodily strength " 
 
 "Oh! I do not expect it," said the ex-magistrate 
 with a sigh; "but if he only can render life endur- 
 able to her. I relied upon your quick perception, 
 monsieur, and I wanted to thank you, for you 
 grasped the whole situation. Ah! she is having one 
 of her attacks!" he cried, as he heard a shriek 
 through the partition; "she has gone beyond her 
 strength." 
 
 He pressed Godefroid's hand and hastened back 
 to his own apartments.
 
 The next morning, at eight o'clock, Godefroid 
 knocked at the door of the famous Polish physician. 
 He was escorted by a footman to the first floor of 
 the little house, which he had had time to examine 
 while the concierge was finding and summoning the 
 servant. 
 
 Luckily, as he expected, Godefroid's promptness 
 saved him the tedium of waiting; he was, in all 
 probability, the first arrival. From a very simply 
 furnished reception room, he passed into a large 
 study, where he found an old man in a dressing- 
 gown, smoking a long pipe. The dressing-gown, 
 which was of shiny black bombazine, dated back to 
 the Polish emigration. 
 
 "What can I do for you," said the doctor, "for 
 you are not sick." 
 
 And he bestowed upon Godefroid a glance in 
 which there was the curious puzzling expression 
 characteristic of the eyes of the Polish Jew, those 
 eyes which seem to have ears. 
 
 Halpersohn was, to Godefroid's vast surprise, a 
 man of some fifty -six years, with short Turkish legs 
 and a broad, powerful chest. There was a sugges- 
 tion of the oriental about him, and his face must 
 have been very handsome in his youth; he still 
 possessed a genuine Hebrew nose, long and hooked 
 like a Damascus scimitar. The forehead, a true 
 (309)
 
 310 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Polish forehead, broad and noble, but wrinkled like 
 crumpled paper, recalled the forehead of St. Joseph 
 in the paintings of the old Italian masters. The sea- 
 green eyes, set in grayish, wrinkled membranes, 
 like a parrot's eyes, expressed a high degree of 
 craft and avarice. Lastly his mouth, slit like a 
 wound, added to that sinister countenance all the 
 ugliness of suspicion. 
 
 That pale, thin face for Halpersohn was remark- 
 ably thin surmounted by unkempt black hair, was 
 adorned by a very long and heavy black beard, 
 sprinkled with white, which concealed the lower 
 half of the face, so that one saw only the forehead, 
 eyes, nose, cheek-bones and mouth. 
 
 This friend of the revolutionist Lelewel wore a 
 black velvet cap, which made a black point on his 
 forehead, bringing into bold relief its extreme white- 
 ness, worthy of the brush of Rembrandt. 
 
 The question propounded by the physician, who 
 became so famous by reason of his talent as well as of 
 his avarice, caused Godefroid some surprise, and he 
 said to himself: 
 
 "Does he take me for a robber?" 
 
 The answer to that question was found on the 
 doctor's table and mantelpiece. Godefroid supposed 
 that he was the first to arrive, but he was the last. 
 His patients had deposited on the mantelpiece and 
 the edge of the table fees of no mean amount, for 
 Godefroid spied piles of pieces of twenty francs and 
 forty francs, and two one-thousand franc notes. 
 Was that the proceeds of one morning? He doubted
 
 THE NOVICE 311 
 
 it very much, and believed that it must be the 
 profits of some shrewd invention of his mind. Per- 
 haps the avaricious but infallible doctor was anxious 
 to increase his receipts by allowing his patients, who 
 were made up of wealthy people, to believe that 
 they were giving him rolls of gold instead of "flim- 
 sies." 
 
 Moses Halpersohn was entitled to be paid hand- 
 somely, by the way, for he cured, and cured just 
 those desperate diseases which medical science 
 abandoned. Europeans do not know that the 
 Slavic peoples possess many secrets; they have a 
 collection of sovereign remedies, the result of their 
 intercourse with the Chinese, the Persians, the 
 Cossacks, the Turks and the Tartars. Some 
 peasant women, who pass for sorceresses, effect 
 radical cures of madness in Poland with the juices 
 of herbs. In that country there is a whole system 
 of uncodified observations of the effects of certain 
 plants and of the barks of some trees reduced to 
 powder, which are transmitted from family to family, 
 and miraculous cures are made there. 
 
 Halpersohn, who was considered a quack for five 
 or six years, because of his powders and medica- 
 ments, possessed the inborn science of great physi- 
 cians. Not only was he a scholar and a man of the 
 closest powers of observation, but he had traveled 
 through Germany, Russia, Persia and Turkey, 
 where he had gathered up many traditions; and, as 
 he was acquainted with chemistry, he became the 
 living library of the secrets scattered among les
 
 312 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 bonnes femmes, as they say in France, from all the 
 countries through which he had journeyed, in the 
 wake of his father, by trade a traveling peddler. 
 
 We must not believe that the scene in Richard en 
 Palestine, where Saladin cures the King of England, 
 is a fiction. Halpersohn possesses a silk purse 
 which he dips in water to color it slightly, and 
 certain fevers yield to that water when taken by 
 the invalid. According to him the powers of plants 
 are infinite, and it is possible to cure the most 
 horrible diseases. But he, like his confreres, some- 
 times stops short in the face of things that he cannot 
 understand. Halpersohn approves of the invention 
 of homoeopathy, more because of its therapeutics, 
 than for its medical system; he corresponded at this 
 time with Hedenius of Dresden, Chelius of Heidel- 
 berg and the famous German physicians, keeping 
 his hand closed, although it was full of discoveries. 
 He did not choose to instruct pupils. 
 
 The frame was in harmony with that portrait 
 from a canvas of Rembrandt. The study, hung 
 with a paper in imitation of green velvet, was 
 shabbily furnished with a green divan. The carpet, 
 of different shades of green, showed the nap. A 
 great black leather easy-chair, intended for patients, 
 stood in front of the window, which was hung with 
 green curtains. A mahogany desk-chair, Roman in 
 shape, and covered with green morocco, was the 
 doctor's seat. 
 
 Between the fireplace and the long table at which 
 he was writing, was a common iron chest, standing
 
 THE NOVICE 313 
 
 against the centre of the wall opposite the fireplace, 
 and upon it stood a clock of Vienna granite, 
 supported by a bronze group, representing Love 
 playing with Death, a present from a great German 
 sculptor, whom Halpersohn had cured, in all proba- 
 bility. The only ornaments on the mantelpiece 
 were a cup with a candlestick on each side of it. 
 On each side of the divan were two ebony corner- 
 pieces to hold plates, upon which Godefroid saw 
 divers silver bowls, carafes and napkins. 
 
 This simplicity, which might almost be called 
 bareness, made a deep impression on Godefroid, who 
 had the power of embracing everything at a glance, 
 and he recovered his sang-froid. 
 
 "I am perfectly well, monsieur; I do not come 
 on my own account, therefore, but in behalf of a 
 lady whom you should have visited long ago. I 
 refer to a lady who lives on Boulevard du Mont- 
 Parnasse." 
 
 "Oh! yes, that lady has sent her son to me 
 several times. Very good, monsieur, let her come 
 at my hour for consultation." 
 
 "Let her come!" repeated Godefroid indignantly; 
 "why, monsieur, she can't be moved from her bed 
 to a chair; she has to be raised with straps!" 
 
 "You're not a physician, monsieur?" asked the 
 Jew doctor with a curious leer, which made his face 
 even more vicious than it naturally was. 
 
 "If the Baron de Nucingen should send word to 
 you that he was ill and wished to see you, would 
 you reply: 'Let him come here?' "
 
 314 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "I would go to him," replied the Jew coolly, 
 expectorating into a Dutch spittoon made of 
 mahogany and filled with sand. 
 
 "You would go," retorted Godefroid mildly, 
 "because the Baron de Nucingen has two millions a 
 year, and " 
 
 "The rest has nothing to do with the matter I 
 would go." 
 
 "Very well, monsieur, you will come and see the 
 invalid on Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse for the same 
 reason. Although I haven't the Baron de Nucingen's 
 fortune, I am here to tell you that you may put 
 your own price on the cure, or on your services, if 
 you fail. I am ready to pay you in advance; but 
 monsieur, would not you, a Polish emigre, a 
 communist, I believe, make a sacrifice to Poland? 
 for the lady in question is the grand-daughter of 
 General Tarlovski, Prince Poniatowski's friend." 
 
 "Monsieur, you came to ask me to cure this lady, 
 and not to give me advice. In Poland I am a Pole; 
 in Paris I am a Parisian. Everyone does good in 
 his own way, and I beg you to believe that the 
 avidity with which I am credited has its reasons. 
 The treasure I am amassing has its destination, it is 
 sacred. I sell health: the rich can pay for it and I 
 make them pay. The poor have their own doctors. 
 If I hadn't an object, I wouldn't practice medicine. 
 1 live soberly, and I pass my time traveling about; 
 I am lazy and I was once a gambler. Have done, 
 young man! You are not old enough to pass 
 judgment on old men."
 
 THE NOVICE 315 
 
 Godefroid made no reply. 
 
 "Do you live with the grand-daughter of that 
 idiot who had no courage to do anything but fight, 
 and who handed his country over to Catherine II.?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "Be at home Monday at three o'clock," he said, 
 laying aside his pipe and taking up his memorandum 
 book in which he wrote a few words. "You will 
 hand me two hundred francs when I arrive; and, if 
 I promise to cure her, you will give me a thousand 
 crowns. He told me," he continued, "that the 
 woman is shrivelled up as if she had fallen into the 
 fire." 
 
 "Monsieur, you have the assurance of the most 
 celebrated physicians in Paris, that it is a nervous 
 disorder, the symptoms of which are so extraordinary 
 that they denied that they were possible until they 
 saw them." 
 
 "Ah! I remember now the details that the little 
 fellow gave me. Until to-morrow, monsieur." 
 
 Godefroid bowed to that extraordinary yet inter- 
 esting individual, and took his leave. There was 
 nothing about him to indicate or suggest the physi- 
 cian, not even the bare study, in which the only 
 article of furniture that caught the eye was that 
 formidable chest of Huret or Fichet. 
 
 Godefroid arrived at Passage Vivienne in time to 
 purchase, before the shop closed, a magnificent 
 accordion, which he ordered sent to Monsieur 
 Bernard, giving his address. 
 
 Then he went to Rue Chanoinesse by way of
 
 3l6 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Quai des Augustins, where he hoped to find the 
 shop of one of the commission dealers in books open; 
 he was fortunate enough to find one, where he had 
 a long conversation with a young clerk on the 
 subject of law-books. 
 
 He found Madame de la Chanterie and her friends 
 just returned from high mass; Godefroid answered 
 her first glance with a significant shake of the head. 
 
 "Why, is not our dear Pere Alain with you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "He will not come this Sunday," replied Madame 
 de la Chanterie; "you won't see him until a week 
 from to-day that is, unless you go to the rendezvous 
 he appointed." 
 
 "Madame," said Godefroid, "you know he 
 doesn't intimidate me like these gentlemen, and I 
 hoped to make my confession to him." 
 
 "And what about me?" 
 
 "Oh! I will tell you everything, and I have many 
 things to tell. For a beginning, I fell in with the 
 most extraordinary of all forms of misery, a bar- 
 barous combination of destitution and luxury; and 
 with it all, human figures of a sublimity surpassing 
 all the creations of our most popular novelists." 
 
 "Nature, especially moral nature, is always above 
 art, as far as God is above His creatures. But tell 
 me about your experiences in the unknown regions 
 to which you made your first journey." 
 
 Monsieur Nicolas and Monsieur Joseph Abbe de 
 Veze had remained behind for a few moments at 
 Notre-Dame left Madame de la Chanterie alone
 
 THE NOVICE 317 
 
 with Godefroid, who, being still under the spell of 
 the emotion of the preceding evening, narrated 
 everything, to the smallest details, with the force, 
 the energy and the fervor caused by the first 
 impression of such a spectacle and its accompani- 
 ments, both men and things. He achieved a great 
 triumph, for the tranquil, gentle Madame de la 
 Chanterie, accustomed as she was to descend to the 
 deepest depths of human suffering, shed tears. 
 "You did well," she said, "to send the accordion." 
 "I would like to do much more," replied Gode- 
 froid, "for that family is the first to teach me the 
 pleasures of charity; I desire to assure to that 
 sublime old man the greater part of the profits of his 
 great work. I do not know whether you have 
 enough confidence in my capacity to put me in the 
 way to manage an affair of such magnitude. 
 According to the information I have gathered, it 
 would require about nine thousand francs to make 
 an edition of fifteen hundred copies of the book, and 
 their value, at the lowest estimate, would then be 
 twenty-four thousand francs. As we must first pay 
 the three thousand and some hundred francs for 
 which the manuscript is pledged, the whole amount 
 to be risked will be something like twelve thousand 
 francs. Oh! Madame, if you knew how bitterly I 
 regretted, as I walked hither from Quai des Augus- 
 tins, that I have squandered my little fortune! The 
 spirit of Charity has appeared to me and inflamed 
 the ardor of the novice; I propose to renounce the 
 world, I propose to lead the life these gentlemen
 
 318 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 lead, and I will be worthy of you. Many times in 
 these last two days I have blessed the chance that 
 brought me here. I will obey you in everything, 
 until you decide that I am worthy to be one of you." 
 
 "Listen to me," replied Madame de la Chanterie 
 gravely, after reflecting for a moment, "for I have 
 some important things to disclose to you. You have 
 been fascinated, my child, by the poetry of misfor- 
 tune. Yes, misfortune often has a poetry of its 
 own; for, in my view, poetry is a sort of excess of 
 sentiment, and suffering is a sentiment. So many 
 people live by suffering!" 
 
 "Yes, Madame, I was seized by the demon of 
 curiosity. What can you expect; I am not accus- 
 tomed as yet to penetrate to the heart of unfortunate 
 existences, and I do not go forward with the 
 calmness of your three devout soldiers of the Lord. 
 But, understand me, it was after I had conquered 
 my curiosity that I determined to devote myself to 
 your work!" 
 
 "Listen, my dear angel," said Madame de la 
 Chanterie, uttering the three words with a gentle 
 fervor by which Godefroid was strangely mnved, 
 "we have forbidden ourselves absolutely we do 
 not misuse words here, and what is forbidden never 
 comes to our mind we have made it a law never 
 to enter into speculations. To print a book for 
 purposes of sale and to expect profits from it, is a 
 business transaction, and enterprises of that sort 
 would involve us in the embarrassments of business. 
 This certainly seems to me a practicable matter,
 
 THE NOVICE 319 
 
 yes, and a necessary one. Do you suppose it is 
 the first case of the kind we have had? Twenty 
 times, yes, a hundred times, we have discovered 
 ways of saving households, whole families thus! 
 Now, what would become of us if we had gone into 
 affairs of that sort? We should have been traders. 
 To form a company to deal in misfortune is not to 
 work one's self, but to make misfortune do the work. 
 In a few days you will fall in with misery more 
 hopeless than this; will you do the same thing? If 
 so, you will soon be overwhelmed! Remember, my 
 child, that Messieurs Mongenod have been unable 
 for a year past to look after our accounts. More 
 than half of your time will be taken up in keeping 
 our books. We have nearly two thousand debtors 
 in Paris to-day; and we must at least know the 
 amount of their debts, for the benefit of those who 
 can repay us. We never ask, we wait. We 
 calculate that half of the money we give away is 
 lost. The other half comes back to us, sometimes 
 doubled. For instance, suppose that this magistrate 
 should die there are twelve thousand francs in a 
 very precarious condition. But if his daughter is 
 cured, if his grandson is successful and becomes a 
 magistrate some day why, if he is an honorable 
 man, he will remember the debt, and he will repay 
 the money of the poor with interest. Do you know 
 that more families than one, whom we have rescued 
 from want and started on the road to fortune, have 
 laid aside the share of the poor and repaid the sums 
 lent, doubled and sometimes trebled? Those are
 
 320 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 our only speculations! In the first place, consider, 
 as to the subject with which your mind is filled 
 and it is quite right that it should be so that the 
 sale of this magistrate's work depends upon the 
 excellence of the work itself; have you read it? 
 And then, even if the book is a good one, how 
 many good books have waited one, two, three years 
 for the success they deserved! How many wreaths 
 have been laid upon tombs! And I know that 
 publishers have methods of dealing and realizing 
 upon their wares that make their trade the most 
 haphazard and difficult to be understood of all 
 Parisian trades. Monsieur Nicolas will tell you of 
 these difficulties, which are inherent in the nature 
 of books. Thus, you see, we are sensible, we are 
 experienced in all forms of misery as in all trades, 
 for we have been studying Paris for a long while. 
 The Mongenods help us; they are our torches, and 
 through them we know that the Bank of France 
 always looks with suspicion on the publishing trade, 
 although it is one of the most honorable; but it is 
 not well carried on. As for the four thousand francs 
 necessary to rescue this noble family from the 
 horrors of poverty, for the poor boy and his 
 grandfather must be properly fed and be enabled to 
 dress decently I will give them to you. There 
 are sufferings, miseries, wounds, which we relieve 
 instantly, without hesitation, without trying to find 
 out whom we are assisting: religion, honor, character, 
 all are matters of indifference to us; but, when it 
 comes to lending the money of the poor to assist
 
 THE NOVICE 321 
 
 misfortune in the active form of trade or commerce 
 why, then, we demand security with the implaca- 
 bility of the usurer. So hereafter limit your 
 enthusiasm to finding the most honorable publisher 
 that you can for the old man. Monsieur Nicolas 
 will help you in that. He knows advocates, pro- 
 fessors and authors of books on jurisprudence; and by 
 next Sunday he will certainly have some good advice 
 to give you. Have no fear; if it is possible, this diffi- 
 culty will be solved. But perhaps it would be well 
 for Monsieur Nicolas to read this magistrate's work. 
 Obtain the manuscript for him, if it can be done." 
 
 Godefroid was utterly amazed by the sound 
 common sense of this woman whom he had supposed 
 to be animated solely by the spirit of charity. He 
 bent his knee and kissed one of Madame de la 
 Chanterie's lovely hands, saying: 
 
 "So you are the spirit of reason too?" 
 
 "We are obliged to be everything in our business," 
 she replied with the gentle gayety characteristic of 
 the true saint. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, broken by the 
 exclamation from Godefroid: 
 
 "Two thousand debtors you said, Madame? two 
 thousand accounts! why, that is a tremendous 
 number!" 
 
 "Oh! yes, two thousand accounts," she replied, 
 "which may be closed, as I have just said, by pay- 
 ments based upon the sense of honor of our debtors; 
 for we have fully three thousand other families who 
 never pay us anything but thanks. So, as I say, we 
 
 21
 
 322 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 feel the need of having properly kept books. And, if 
 you possess a discretion that will endure every test, 
 you shall be our financial oracle. We are obliged 
 to keep a journal, a ledger, a book of current 
 accounts and a cash-book. We have many notes, 
 but we waste too much time trying Here are the 
 gentlemen," she added. 
 
 Godefroid was grave and pensive and took little 
 part in the conversation at first; he was bewildered 
 by the revelation Madame de la Chanterie had just 
 made to him in a tone that proved that she wished 
 to reward him for his ardor. 
 
 "Two thousand families assisted!" he said to 
 himself; "why, if they all cost as much as Monsieur 
 Bernard is going to cost us, we must have millions 
 of money planted in Paris!" 
 
 This thought was one of the last manifestations 
 of the worldly spirit, which was insensibly dying 
 away in Godefroid. Upon reflection, he realized 
 that the combined fortunes of Madame de la Chan- 
 terie, Messieurs Nicolas, Alain, Joseph, together 
 with that of the late magistrate, Popinot, the gifts 
 collected by Abbe de Vze and the sums advanced 
 by the house of Mongenod, must amount to a 
 considerable sum; and that that capital, increased 
 by the contributions of those debtors who showed 
 themselves grateful, must have increased in twelve 
 or fifteen years like a snowball, as those charitable 
 persons took nothing from it. He gradually obtained 
 a clearer insight into that vast work, and his desire 
 to co-operate therein increased in proportion.
 
 THE NOVICE 323 
 
 About nine o'clock he started to return on foot to 
 Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse; but Madame de la 
 Chanterie, fearing the solitude of the quarter, forced 
 him to take a cab. As he alighted from the vehicle, 
 Godefroid heard the notes of the accordion, although 
 the shutters were so tightly closed that not a ray of 
 light could be seen; and, when he reached the 
 landing, Auguste, who had evidently been watching 
 for his return, opened the door of the apartment, 
 and said to him: 
 
 "Mamma would like to see you, and grandfather 
 invites you to have a cup of tea." 
 
 Upon entering the invalid's room, Godefroid found 
 her transfigured by the pleasure of playing upon the 
 instrument; her face was beaming and her eyes 
 shone like diamonds. 
 
 "I would have liked to wait for you, so that you 
 could hear the first chords; but I pounced on the 
 little organ like a starving man on a bountiful 
 dinner. You have a heart to understand me, so I 
 am forgiven." 
 
 Vanda made a sign to her son, who took his place 
 so as to press the pedal by which the breath of the 
 instrument was expelled; and then, with her eyes 
 gazing upward, like St. Cecilia, the invalid, whose 
 fingers had momentarily recovered strength and 
 agility, played variations upon the Prayer from 
 Moses, which she had composed in a few hours from 
 the score, purchased for her by her son. Gode- 
 froid discovered in her a talent akin to Chopin's. 
 Her soul manifested itself by divine sounds in which
 
 324 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 a strain of gentle melancholy was predominant. 
 Monsieur Bernard had greeted Godefroid with a 
 glance instinct with a feeling long unexpressed. If 
 the source of tears had not been drained dry forever 
 in that old man, wasted by such unremitting, 
 poignant sorrow, it was easy to see that his eyes 
 would have been wet. 
 
 He toyed with his snuff-box, gazing at his daughter 
 with indescribable joy. 
 
 "To-morrow, madame," said Godefroid, when 
 the music had ceased, "to-morrow your fate will be 
 decided, for I have good news for you. The famous 
 Halpersohn will come to-morrow at three o'clock. 
 And he promised," he added in Monsieur Bernard's 
 ear, "to tell me the truth." 
 
 The old man rose, took Godefroid's hand and led 
 him to a corner of the room, beside the fireplace. 
 He was trembling with emotion. 
 
 "Oh! what a night I shall pass! It will be a 
 final decree!" he said in the young man's ear. 
 "My daughter will be cured or sentenced to death!" 
 
 "Have courage," Godefroid replied, "and come 
 to my room after we have had our tea." 
 
 "Enough, enough, my child," said the old man, 
 "you will bring on one of your paroxysms. Prostra- 
 tion will follow this accession of strength." 
 
 He bade Auguste take the instrument away, and 
 handed a cup of tea to his daughter with the 
 wheedling manner of a nurse seeking to anticipate 
 a little child's impatience. 
 
 "What sort of man is this doctor?" she asked,
 
 THE NOVICE 325 
 
 her mind already diverted by the prospect of seeing 
 a stranger. 
 
 Like all prisoners, Vanda was devoured by 
 curiosity. When the other physical phenomena of 
 her disease ceased to manifest themselves, they 
 seemed to be transferred to the moral side of her 
 nature, and thereupon she conceived strange 
 whims, extravagant fancies. She wanted to see 
 Rossini; she wept because her father, whom she 
 believed to be omnipotent, refused to bring him to 
 her. 
 
 Godefroid thereupon gave a minute description of 
 the Jew doctor and his office, for she knew nothing 
 of her father's previous attempts to consult him. 
 Monsieur Bernard had bade his grandson keep silent 
 as to his visits to Halpersohn, he dreaded so to 
 arouse in his daughter's mind hopes which could not 
 be realized. Vanda seemed to hang upon the words 
 that issued from Godefroid's mouth, she was fasci- 
 nated, and her longing to see the strange Pole 
 became so ardent that she became lightheaded in a 
 measure. 
 
 "Poland has often produced such anomalous, 
 mysterious creatures," said the ex-magistrate. 
 "To-day, for example, besides this doctor, we have 
 Hoe'ne Vronski, the mystical mathematician, the 
 poet Mickievicz, the seer Tovianski, and Chopin, 
 whose talent is superhuman. Great national com- 
 motions always produce a race of deformed 
 giants." 
 
 "Oh! dear papa, what a man you are! If you
 
 326 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 should write down all you say just to entertain me, 
 you would make your fortune; for just imagine, 
 monsieur, my dear old father makes up the loveliest 
 stories for me when I have no novels to read, and 
 puts me to sleep in that way. His voice soothes me, 
 and he often allays my pain with his wit. Who will 
 ever reward him! Auguste, my son, you ought to 
 kiss your grandfather's footprints for me." 
 
 The young man turned his lovely moist eyes on 
 his mother, and that glance, overflowing with long 
 pent-up compassion, was a poem in itself. Gode- 
 froid rose, took Auguste's hand and pressed it. 
 
 "God, madame, has placed two angels by your 
 side!" he cried. 
 
 "Yes, I know it. For that reason I often reproach 
 myself for driving them mad. Come, dear Augus- 
 tin, kiss your mother. He's a boy, monsieur, of 
 whom any mother would be proud. He is pure gold, 
 an openhearted, stainless creature; but a little too 
 passionate, like his mamma. Perhaps God nailed 
 me to my bed to keep me from the follies that 
 women commit who have too much heart," she 
 added with a smile. 
 
 Godefroid replied with a smile and a bow. 
 
 "Good-night, monsieur; and I pray you thank 
 your friend, for he has made a poor helpless creature 
 happy." 
 
 "Monsieur," said Godefroid, when he was in his 
 own apartments with Monsieur Bernard, who accom- 
 panied him, "I think I can assure you that you will 
 not be robbed by that trio of fine fellows. I shall
 
 THE NOVICE 327 
 
 have the necessary funds, but you must turn over 
 to me your agreement relative to the redemption of 
 the manuscript. And in order that I may do more 
 for you, you will have to let me have the work to 
 be read not by myself, for I have not enough 
 knowledge of the subject to pass judgment upon 
 it but by an ex-magistrate of absolute integrity, 
 who will undertake, after determining the merit of 
 the work, to find an honorable house with whom 
 you will be able to make an equitable bargain. But 
 I do not insist upon that. Meanwhile, here are five 
 hundred francs," he added, handing the bewildered 
 old man a banknote, "to supply your most pressing 
 needs. I do not ask you for any receipt, you will be 
 bound only by your conscience, and your conscience 
 should not speak unless you should hereafter be in 
 more comfortable circumstances. I will undertake 
 to pay Halpersohn " 
 
 "Who, then, are you?" said the old man, falling 
 upon a chair. 
 
 "I am nobody," replied Godefroid; "but I am in 
 the service of influential people, to whom your 
 distress is now known and who are interested in 
 you. Ask me nothing more." 
 
 "But what principle guides these people?" said 
 the old man. 
 
 "Religion, monsieur," Godefroid replied. 
 
 "Religion! can it be possible?" 
 
 "Yes, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion." 
 
 "Do you belong to the order of Jesuits?" 
 
 "No, monsieur. Have no fear: these people have
 
 328 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 no designs upon you, beyond that of assisting you 
 and of making your family happy once more." 
 
 "Can it be possible for philanthropy to become 
 something else than mere vanity?" 
 
 "Oh! monsieur," exclaimed Godefroid eagerly, 
 "do not dishonor blessed Catholic charity, the 
 virtue defined by St. Paul!" 
 
 Monsieur Bernard, upon that reply, began to 
 stride up and down the room. 
 
 "I accept," he said abruptly, "and I have but one 
 way of thanking you, that is to entrust my work to 
 you. The notes and citations are useless to one 
 who has been a magistrate; and I still have two 
 months' work to do, copying the citations, as I told 
 you. Until to-morrow," he added, exchanging a 
 hearty grasp of the hand with Godefroid. 
 
 "Can I have made a convert?" said Godefroid 
 to himself, struck by the unfamiliar expression the 
 old man's features had assumed at his last reply.
 
 The next afternoon, at three o'clock, a hired 
 carriage stopped in front of the house, and Godefroid 
 saw Halpersohn alight from it, enveloped in a huge 
 bearskin coat. During the night the cold had 
 grown more intense, the thermometer marked ten 
 degrees below the freezing point. 
 
 The Jew doctor scrutinized with interest, although 
 stealthily, the room in which his visitor of the 
 preceding day received him, and Godefroid detected 
 a gleam of suspicion, like the point of a dagger, in 
 his eyes. That swift flash of distrust made Gode- 
 froid shudder internally, for he thought that the 
 man was likely to be without pity in his dealings; 
 and it is so natural to think of genius as combined 
 with kindness of heart, that he had a renewed 
 feeling of disgust. 
 
 "Monsieur," he said, "I see that the simple 
 appearance of my room disturbs you; therefore you 
 will not be surprised by what I do. Here are your 
 two hundred francs, and here are three notes of a 
 thousand francs each," he added, taking from his 
 portfolio the bank notes Madame de la Chanterie 
 had handed him to take Monsieur Bernard's manu- 
 script out of pawn; "but in case you have doubts 
 concerning my responsibility, I offer you, as my 
 references, Messieurs Mongenod, bankers, Rue de 
 la Victoire." 
 
 (329)
 
 330 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "I know them," replied Halpersohn, bestowing 
 the ten gold-pieces in his pocket. 
 
 "He will call on them," thought Godefroid. 
 
 "Where does the invalid live?" inquired the 
 doctor, rising like a man who knows the value of 
 time. 
 
 "Come this way, monsieur," said Godefroid, 
 going first, as guide. 
 
 The Jew scrutinized his surroundings with a sharp 
 and suspicious eye, for he had the stealthy glance 
 of a spy; so that he obtained a clear view of the 
 horrors of indigence through the door of the room in 
 which the magistrate and his grandson slept; 
 unfortunately Monsieur Bernard had gone to don 
 the costume in which he appeared in his daughter's 
 room, and in his haste to admit his visitors, he did 
 not securely close the door of his dog-kennel. He 
 bowed with noble dignity to Halpersohn, and 
 cautiously opened the door of his daughter's room. 
 
 "Vanda, my child, here is the doctor," he said. 
 
 He stood aside to admit Halpersohn, who still 
 wore his fur coat. The Jew was surprised by the 
 contrast presented by that room, which was an 
 anomaly in that quarter and especially in that 
 house; but his amazement lasted only a short time, 
 for he had often seen, among the Jews of Germany 
 and Russia, such contrasts between what seemed to 
 be profound destitution and concealed wealth. As 
 he walked from the door to the invalid's bed, he 
 did not take his eyes from her, and when he reached 
 the bedside he said to her in Polish:
 
 THE NOVICE 331 
 
 "You are a Pole?" 
 
 "I am not, but my mother was." 
 
 "Whom did your grandfather, General Tarlovski, 
 marry?" 
 
 "A Pole." 
 
 "From what province?" 
 
 "She was a Sobolevska from Pinsk." 
 
 "Good. Monsieur is your father?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 He turned to Monsieur Bernard. 
 
 "Your wife, monsieur ?" 
 
 "She is dead," Monsieur Bernard replied. 
 
 "Was she very fair?" said Halpersohn, with a 
 slight gesture of impatience at having been inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "Here is her portrait," replied Monsieur Bernard, 
 taking down a superb frame in which were several 
 lovely miniatures. 
 
 Halpersohn felt the patient's head and smoothed 
 her hair, as he glanced at the portrait of Vanda 
 Tarlovska, born Countess Sobolevska. 
 
 "Describe to me the troubles growing out of the 
 disease." 
 
 He seated himself on the couch and gazed stead- 
 fastly at Vanda during the twenty minutes that the 
 father and daughter employed, alternately, in 
 complying with his demand. 
 
 "How old is madame?" 
 
 "Thirty-eight." 
 
 "Ah! good," he cried, springing to his feet, "I 
 will undertake to cure her. I do not promise to
 
 332 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 restore the use of her legs, but cured she shall be. 
 But she must be taken to a private hospital in my 
 neighborhood." 
 
 "But, monsieur, my daughter cannot be moved " 
 
 "I will answer for her cure," said Halpersohn 
 sententiously; "but only on those conditions. Do 
 you know that she is going to exchange her present 
 disease for another more horrible one, which will 
 last a year perhaps, six months at least? You are 
 madame's father, so you can see what is coming." 
 
 "Are you sure?" demanded Monsieur Bernard. 
 
 "Sure!" the Jew repeated. "Madame has in her 
 body a principle of disease, a national humor, and 
 we must rid her of it. When you come, you must 
 bring her to me at Chaillot, Rue Basse-Saint-Pierre, 
 Doctor Halpersohn's private hospital." 
 
 "But how shall we do it?" 
 
 "On a litter, as all invalids are carried to the 
 hospitals." 
 
 "But the journey will kill her." 
 
 "No." 
 
 As he uttered that abrupt no, Halpersohn walked 
 to the door; Godefroid joined him on the stairs. 
 
 The Jew, who was stifling with the heat, whis- 
 pered in his ear: 
 
 "In addition to the thousand crowns, it will be 
 fifteen francs a day; you must pay for three months 
 in advance." 
 
 "Very good, monsieur. So you will undertake 
 to cure her?" Godefroid asked, standing on the step 
 of the cab which the doctor had hurriedly entered.
 
 THE NOVICE 333 
 
 "I will answer for her," replied the Pole. "Are 
 you in love with that woman?" 
 
 "No," said Godefroid. 
 
 "You win not repeat what I am going to confide 
 to you, for I say it only to prove that I am sure of 
 curing her, and if you were to divulge a syllable 
 you would kill the woman." 
 
 Godefroid replied with a single gesture. 
 
 "She has been for seventeen years a victim of 
 the Polish plica, which produces all these symptoms; 
 I have seen more horrible cases of it. Now, I alone 
 know how to expel the plica in such a way as to be 
 able to cure it, for it is not always cured. You see, 
 monsieur, how unselfish I am. If she were a great 
 lady, a Baronne de Nucingen or the wife or daugh- 
 ter of any other of the modern Croesuses, I should 
 receive one hundred, two hundred thousand francs 
 for the cure, whatever I might ask, in fact! But 
 that's a small matter." 
 
 "And the journey?" 
 
 "Bah! she will seem to be dying, but she won't 
 die! She has life enough for a hundred years, when 
 she is once cured. Go on, Jacques! Rue Mon- 
 sieur, quick! quick!" he said to the driver. 
 
 He drove away, leaving Godefroid on the boule- 
 vard, where he stood watching the cab in a 
 bewildered way. 
 
 "Who in the world is that devil of a man in the 
 bearskin?" queried La Vauthier, whom nothing 
 escaped. "Is what the cab-driver told me true, 
 that he's the most famous doctor in Paris?"
 
 334 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "What difference does it make to you, Mere 
 Vauthier?" 
 
 "Oh! none at all!" she replied, with a leer. 
 
 "You did very wrong not to come over to my 
 side," said Godefroid, walking slowly back toward 
 the house; "you would have made more than with 
 Messieurs Barbet and Metivier, from whom you will 
 get nothing." 
 
 "Who says I am on their side?" she said, with a 
 shrug of her shoulders; "Monsieur Barbet is my 
 landlord, that's all!" 
 
 It required two days to persuade Monsieur Bernard 
 to part from his daughter and send her to Chaillot. 
 Godefroid and the ex-magistrate made the journey 
 walking on each side of the litter with its canopy 
 of blue and white striped ticking, on which lay the 
 dear invalid, almost bound to the mattress, her 
 father had such dread of the convulsive movements 
 caused by her nervous attacks. The little procession 
 started at three o'clock and reached the hospital 
 about five, just at nightfall. Godefroid paid and 
 took a receipt for the four hundred and fifty francs 
 demanded for the first quarter; and when he went 
 downstairs to give the two bearers their pourboires, 
 he was joined by Monsieur Bernard, who took from 
 under the mattress a very voluminous sealed package 
 and handed it to Godefroid. 
 
 "One of these men will go and call a cab for 
 you," said the old man, "for you could not carry 
 these four volumes far. This is my work; hand it 
 to my censor, I place it in his hands for the whole
 
 THE NOVICE 335 
 
 of this week. I shall remain in this quarter at least 
 a week, for I do not propose to abandon ;my child 
 so. I know my grandson, he can take charge of 
 my apartments, especially with your assistance; I 
 commend him to your care. If I were what I once 
 was, I would ask the name of my critic, of this 
 ex-magistrate, for there are few such whom I do 
 not know " 
 
 "Oh! it's no mystery," Godefroid interrupted 
 him. "Since you have such entire confidence in 
 me, I am at liberty to tell you that your censor is 
 the former President Lecamus de Tresnes." 
 
 "Of the Royal Court of Paris! Take it go! he 
 is one of the finest characters of this age! He and 
 the late Popinot, the judge of the Tribunal of First 
 Instance, were magistrates worthy of the glorious 
 days of the old parliaments. All my fears, if I had 
 retained any, would be scattered to the winds now! 
 Where does he live? I should be glad to go and 
 thank him for the trouble he is taking." 
 
 "You will find him on Rue Chanoinesse, under 
 the name of Monsieur Nicolas. I am going there 
 now. And what about your agreement with your 
 sharpers?" 
 
 "Auguste will hand it to you," said the old man, 
 as he returned to the courtyard of the hospital. 
 
 A cabriolet summoned by one of the bearers from 
 Quai de Billy arrived at that moment; Godefroid en- 
 tered it and stimulated the ardor of the driver by the 
 promise of a handsome pourboire if he arrived at Rue 
 Chanoinesse in time, for he was anxious to dine there.
 
 336 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Half an hour after Vanda's departure, three men 
 dressed in black, whom La Vauthier admitted 
 through the door on Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, 
 where they had evidently awaited the propitious 
 moment, ascended the stairs, accompanied by that 
 female Judas, and knocked softly at the door of 
 Monsieur Bernard's apartment. As it was a Thurs- 
 day, the young collegian had been able to stay at 
 home. He opened the door and the three men 
 glided like shadows into the first room. 
 
 "What do you want, messieurs?" demanded the 
 young man. 
 
 "This is Monsieur Bernard's? that is to say, 
 Monsieur le Baron's?" 
 
 "But what do you want?" 
 
 "Oh! you know very well, young man, for we 
 were told that your grandfather just went away 
 with a covered litter. We're not surprised at that! 
 but he had a right to do it. I'm a bailiff, and I have 
 come to seize everything there is here. Monday, 
 you had a summons to pay three thousand francs 
 principal, and the costs, to Monsieur Metivier, under 
 pain of arrest, for which we had an order. And as 
 an old onion hawker knows all about shallots, the 
 debtor took to his heels to avoid going to Clichy. 
 But, if we haven't got him, we shall get a little 
 something out of his fine furniture, for we know all 
 about it, young man, and we're going to investigate. " 
 
 "Here are the stamped papers your grandpa would 
 never take," interposed La Vauthier, thrusting 
 three summonses into Auguste's hands.
 
 THE NOVICE 337 
 
 "Remain, madame, we propose to install you as 
 keeper. The law gives you forty sous a day, which 
 isn't to be despised." 
 
 "Ah! then I shall see what there is in that beau- 
 tiful room!" cried Dame Vauthier. 
 
 "You shall not set foot in my mother's room!" 
 cried the young man fiercely, darting between the 
 three men in black and the door. 
 
 At a sign from the bailiff, his two cursitors and 
 his head clerk, who arrived at that moment, seized 
 Auguste. 
 
 "No disturbance, young man! You're not the 
 master here; we'll draw up a report, and you may 
 go and sleep at the prefecture." 
 
 When he heard that terrible word, Auguste burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "Oh! how lucky it is that mamma has gone!" 
 he said; "this would have killed her!" 
 
 A sort of conference took place between the 
 cursitors, the bailiff and Dame Vauthier. Auguste 
 understood, although they talked in low tones, that 
 they were especially desirous to seize his grand- 
 father's manuscripts, and he thereupon opened the 
 door of his mother's room. 
 
 "Enter, messieurs, and injure nothing," he said. 
 "You will be paid to-morrow morning." 
 
 With that he went, weeping, into the kennel, 
 where he seized his grandfather's notes and 
 citations and put them in the stove, knowing that 
 there was not a spark of fire. 
 
 It was done so rapidly that the bailiff, a shrewd,
 
 338 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 cunning rascal, worthy of his clients Barbet and 
 Metivier, found the young man weeping on a chair, 
 when he hurried into the kennel, after deciding that 
 the manuscript was not likely to be in the reception- 
 room. Although books and manuscripts are exempt 
 from seizure, the species of chattel mortgage 
 subscribed by the ex-magistrate justified that method 
 of procedure. But it was an easy matter to find 
 ways of delaying the seizure, which Monsieur 
 Bernard would not have failed to do. Hence the 
 necessity of acting cunningly. In that view the 
 widow Vauthier had done her landlord an exceed- 
 ingly useful turn by neglecting to hand his 
 summonses to the tenant; she intended to drop them 
 in the room as she entered on the heels of the 
 officers, or, if necessary, to tell Monsieur Bernard 
 that she thought that they were meant for the two 
 authors, who had been away for two days. 
 
 The formalities of the levy lasted about an hour, 
 for the bailiff omitted nothing, considering the 
 value of the property seized sufficient to pay the 
 debt. When the bailiff had taken his leave, the 
 poor boy took the summonses and hurried away to 
 find his grandfather at the hospital; for the bailiff 
 told him that Dame Vauthier was responsible, under 
 heavy penalties, for the safe-keeping of the property. 
 He could leave the house therefore without fear. 
 
 The thought of his grandfather being taken to 
 prison for debt made the poor child mad, as young 
 men are mad, that is to say, he was the victim of 
 one of those dangerous, ominous paroxysms of
 
 THE NOVICE 339 
 
 excitement, when all the powers of youth effervesce 
 at once and may lead to the commission of evil 
 deeds as well as to displays of heroism. When 
 poor Auguste reached Rue Basse-Sainte-Pierre, the 
 concierge told him that he did not know what had 
 become of the father of the sick woman who had 
 been brought there at five o'clock; that Monsieur 
 Halpersohn's orders were to allow no one, not even 
 her father, to see her for a week, on the risk of 
 endangering her life. 
 
 That reply put the finishing touch to Auguste's 
 frenzy. He retraced his steps toward Boulevard du 
 Mont-Parnasse, brooding over the most extravagant 
 projects in his despair. He arrived about half-past 
 eight in the evening, almost famished, and so 
 exhausted by hunger and grief, that he listened to 
 Dame Vauthier when she proposed to him to share 
 her supper, which consisted of a ragout of mutton 
 with potatoes. The poor child sank half dead upon a 
 chair, in that vile creature's chamber. Encouraged 
 by the old hag's cajolery and honeyed words, he 
 answered certain adroitly framed questions concern- 
 ing Godefroid, and he gave her to understand that 
 her new tenant was the man who was to pay his 
 grandfather's debts on the morrow; and that they 
 owed to him the happy change that had taken place 
 in their condition within a week. The widow 
 listened to his statements with an incredulous 
 expression, and induced Auguste to drink several 
 glasses of wine. 
 
 About ten o'clock they heard the wheels of a cab,
 
 340 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 which stopped in front of the house, and the widow 
 cried: 
 
 "Ah! there is Monsieur Godefroid." 
 
 Auguste at once took the key of his suite and 
 went out to meet the protector of his family; but he 
 found Godefroid's face so changed that he hesitated to 
 speak to him ; the thought of his grandfather's danger, 
 however, gave the noble-hearted youth courage. 
 
 This is what had taken place on Rue Chanoinesse 
 and had brought the stern expression to Godefroid's 
 face. 
 
 The novice arrived in good time and found 
 Madame de la Chanterie and her faithful disciples 
 in the salon. He took Monsieur Nicolas aside and 
 handed him the four volumes of the Esprit des Lois 
 Modernes. Monsieur Nicolas at once took the sealed 
 package to his room and came down to dinner; 
 then, after they had passed the early part of the 
 evening in conversation, he went up again, intend- 
 ing to begin the perusal of the work. 
 
 Godefroid was greatly surprised when, a few 
 moments after the disappearance of Monsieur 
 Nicolas, he was requested by Manon, on his behalf, 
 to go and speak with him. He went up to his room, 
 under Manon's guidance, and was unable to pay any 
 heed to the interior of the apartments, he was so 
 struck by the transfigured features of his usually 
 placid and unemotional fellow-lodger. 
 
 "Did you know," demanded Monsieur Nicolas, 
 once more the stern magistrate, "did you know the 
 name of the author of this work?"
 
 THE NOVICE 341 
 
 "Monsieur Bernard," Godefroid replied; "I know 
 him only by that name. I did not open the package." 
 
 "Ah! true," said Monsieur Nicolas, "I broke the 
 seals myself. You have made no attempt," he con- 
 tinued, "to discover his antecedents?" 
 
 "No, I know that he married for love the daughter 
 of General Tarlovski; that his daughter's name is 
 Vanda, as her mother's was, and his grandson's 
 Auguste, and the portrait of Monsieur Bernard that 
 I saw, represented the president of a royal court, in 
 a red robe, if I remember aright." 
 
 "See, read this!" said Monsieur Nicolas, pointing 
 to the title of the work, written in Auguste's boldest 
 hand, and arranged thus: 
 
 ESPRIT 
 
 DBS LOIS MODERNES 
 
 PAR MONSIEUR BERNARD-JEAN-BAPTISTE-MACLOUD 
 BARON BOURLAC 
 
 formerly procureur-general at the Royal Court of 
 
 Rouen, and Grand Officer of the Legion 
 
 of Honor. 
 
 "Ah! the executioner of Madame and her 
 daughter and the Chevalier du Vissard!" said 
 Godefroid in a feeble voice. 
 
 The novice's legs gave way beneath him and he 
 sank into an armchair. 
 
 "A pretty beginning!" he muttered. 
 
 "This, my dear Godefroid," resumed Monsieur
 
 342 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 Nicolas, "is a matter that concerns us all; you have 
 done your share of it, the rest is for us! Take no 
 further steps, I beg you; go and get whatever you 
 may have left in that house! Not a word to any- 
 one! absolute secrecy! And tell Baron Bourlac to 
 apply to me. Between now and then we shall have 
 decided how it befits us to act under these circum- 
 stances." 
 
 Godefroid went down stairs, left the house, took 
 a cab, and was driven rapidly to Boulevard du 
 Mont-Parnasse, shuddering with horror at the 
 remembrance of the indictment from the crown 
 office at Caen, of the bloody drama concluded on 
 the scaffold, and of Madame de la Chanterie's term 
 at Bice'tre. He understood the state of abandon- 
 ment in which that one-time procureur-general, in 
 some respects comparable to Fouquier-Tinville, was 
 passing his declining days, and the reasons for his 
 carefully guarded incognito. 
 
 "May Monsieur Nicolas avenge poor Madame de 
 la Chanterie in condign fashion!" 
 
 He was mentally uttering that most un-Catholic 
 wish, when he spied Auguste. 
 
 "What do you want of me?" he asked. 
 
 "My dear, kind monsieur, a misfortune has 
 happened to us that drives me mad! Some villains 
 have been here and seized everything in my 
 mother's room, and they are looking for my grand- 
 father to put him in prison. But those things are 
 not what make me come to you," said the boy, 
 with the noble pride of a Roman; "I have come to
 
 THE NOVICE 343 
 
 ask you to do me such a favor as people do for those 
 who are condemned to death!" 
 
 "Tell me what it is," said Godefroid. 
 
 "They came to get possession of my grandfather's 
 manuscripts; and, as I think he has given them to 
 you, I have come to beg you to take the notes, for 
 the concierge won't allow anything to be taken 
 away, place them with the volumes." 
 
 "Very well, very well," said Godefroid, "go 
 quickly and get them." 
 
 While the young man went to his room, to return 
 immediately, Godefroid reflected that he was guilty 
 of no crime, and that he must not drive the poor 
 child to despair by talking to him about his grand- 
 father, about the neglect and solitude by which his 
 melancholy old age was being punished for the 
 excesses of political life, and he took the package 
 with a sort of good grace. 
 
 "What is your mother's name?" he asked. 
 
 "My mother, monsieur, is the Baronne de Mergi; 
 my father was the son of the first president of the 
 Royal Court of Rouen." 
 
 "Ah!" said Godefroid, "your grandfather gave 
 his daughter to the son of the famous Mergi?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "Leave me, my young friend," said Godefroid. 
 
 He escorted the young Baron de Mergi to the 
 landing and summoned Dame Vauthier. 
 
 "Mere Vauthier," he said, "you may dispose of 
 my apartments, I shall never return here." 
 
 And he went down to return to his cab.
 
 344 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Did you hand anything to that gentleman?" 
 Dame Vauthier asked Auguste. 
 
 "Yes," was the reply. 
 
 "You're a pretty fellow! he's an agent of your 
 enemies! He has managed the whole business, 
 that's sure. The proof that he did the trick is that 
 he's never coming back here. He told me I could 
 advertise my rooms to let." 
 
 Auguste rushed down to the boulevard, ran after 
 the cab and shouted so loud that he finally succeeded 
 in stopping it. 
 
 "What do you want?" demanded Godefroid. 
 
 "My grandfather's manuscripts!" 
 
 "Tell him to go and get them from Monsieur 
 Nicolas." 
 
 The young man took that remark for the ferocious 
 jest of a robber dead to all sense of shame, and he 
 sank down in the snow as the cab moved rapidly 
 away. He sprang to his feet again in an outburst 
 of frantic energy, returned home and went to bed, 
 exhausted by his rapid journeys and his broken 
 heart. The next morning Auguste de Mergi awoke 
 alone in those apartments which his mother and 
 grandfather had occupied the day before, and he was 
 overcome by the painful emotions natural to the 
 plight in which he found himself. The profound 
 solitude of rooms but lately so full of life, where 
 every moment had its duty and its task, affected 
 him so painfully, that he went down to ask Mere 
 Vauthier if his grandfather had come during the 
 night or early in the morning, for he had slept very
 
 THE NOVICE 345 
 
 late, and he imagined that, if Baron Bourlac had 
 returned, the concierge would have informed him of 
 the proceedings against him. She replied with a 
 sneer that he knew well enough where his grand- 
 father was, and that, if he had not come home that 
 morning it was because he was occupying apart- 
 ments at the chateau of Clichy. This mockery 
 from a woman who, only the night before, had 
 made so much of him, made the poor boy more 
 frantic than ever, and he hurried away to the 
 hospital on Rue Basse-Saint-Pierre, made desper- 
 ate by the thought that his grandfather was in 
 prison. 
 
 All night Baron Bourlac had prowled about the 
 hospital, where admittance was denied him, and 
 about the residence of Doctor Halpersohn, whom he 
 naturally desired to call to account for such conduct. 
 The doctor did not return home until two in the 
 morning. The old man, who had been at his door 
 at half-past one, had returned to the broad path on 
 the Champs-Elysees and was walking back and forth 
 there; when he returned, at half-past two, the con- 
 cierge told him that Monsieur Halpersohn had come 
 home and gone to bed, that he was asleep and they 
 did not dare to wake him. 
 
 Finding himself in that distant quarter at half-past 
 two in the morning, the poor father, in despair, 
 wandered around the quay, under the rime-laden 
 trees of the by-paths of the Cours-la-Reine, and 
 waited for the dawn. At nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing he presented himself at the doctor's door, and
 
 346 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 asked him why he kept his daughter thus in close 
 confinement. 
 
 "Monsieur," replied the doctor, "I told you yes- 
 terday that I would answer for your daughter's 
 recovery; but at this moment I am responsible for 
 her life, and you will understand that under those 
 circumstances my power must be supreme. Let me 
 tell you that your daughter took a remedy yester- 
 day which should give her the plica, and that, until 
 she has gotten rid of that horrible disease, she will 
 not be visible. I do not propose that any sudden 
 excitement, any lapse in treatment, shall deprive 
 me of my patient and you of your daughter; if you 
 absolutely insist upon seeing her I shall demand a 
 consultation of three physicians for my own protec- 
 tion, for the patient may die." 
 
 The old man, overdone with fatigue, fell upon a 
 chair; but he soon rose again. 
 
 "Forgive me, monsieur," he said. "I passed the 
 night in horrible distress, waiting for you; you have 
 no idea how dearly I love my daughter, whom I 
 have kept between life and death for fifteen years, 
 and this week of suspense is torture to me!" 
 
 The baron left Halpersohn's office, staggering 
 like a drunken man. About an hour after the 
 departure of the old man, whom the Jew doctor had 
 led as far as the stairs, holding his arm, Auguste de 
 Mergi made his appearance. Upon questioning the 
 concierge at the hospital, the poor fellow had learned 
 that the father of the lady brought there the day 
 before had returned during the evening, that he had
 
 THE NOVICE 347 
 
 asked to see the patient and had spoken of calling 
 upon Doctor Halpersohn in the morning, and that 
 he would undoubtedly hear of him there. Just as 
 Auguste appeared in Halpersohn's study, the doctor 
 was breakfasting on a cup of chocolate and a glass 
 of water, served on a small round table; he did not 
 allow the young man's entrance to disturb him and 
 went on dipping his bread in his chocolate; for he 
 was eating nothing save a roll, cut in four pieces 
 with an accuracy that savored of a surgeon's 
 deftness. Halpersohn had, in fact, done something 
 in surgery in his travels. 
 
 "Well, young man," he said, "have you also 
 come to question me about your mother?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," Auguste replied. 
 
 He walked toward the table, where his eyes were 
 dazzled by several piles of gold pieces among a 
 number of bank notes. In the poor child's unhappy 
 plight, the temptation was stronger than his princi- 
 ples, solidly grounded as they were. He saw before 
 him the means of saving his grandfather and the 
 fruits of twenty years' toil, threatened by greedy 
 speculators. He succumbed. The fascination was 
 swift as thought and justified by the idea of self- 
 sacrifice, which pleased the child. He said to 
 himself: 
 
 "I shall ruin myself, but I shall save my mother 
 and my grandfather!" 
 
 In that hand-to-hand straggle between his good 
 sense and crime, he acquired, as madmen do, a 
 strange, momentary cunning; for, instead of asking
 
 348 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 about his grandfather, he fell in with the doctor's 
 humor. Halpersohn, like all shrewd observers, had 
 made an accurate guess at the past life of the old 
 man, and of the child and his mother. He foresaw 
 or caught a glimpse of the truth which the Baronne 
 de Mergi's conversation vaguely revealed to him, 
 and the result was a sort of kindly feeling for his 
 new patients; of respect or admiration he was 
 incapable. 
 
 "Well, my dear boy," he said to the young 
 baron, in a familiar tone, "I am taking care of your 
 mother for you, and I will give her back to you 
 young and lovely and in good health. She is one 
 of the few patients in whom doctors take an interest; 
 moreover, she is a country-woman of mine through 
 her mother. You and your grandfather must be 
 men enough to go two weeks without seeing 
 madame ?" 
 
 "La Baronne de Mergi." 
 
 "If she is a baroness, you must be a baron?" 
 queried Halpersohn. 
 
 At that moment the theft was accomplished. 
 While the doctor was looking at his bit of bread 
 saturated with chocolate, Auguste seized four folded 
 notes and put them in his trousers pocket, as if he 
 were putting his hand there for greater ease of 
 manner. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, I am a baron. My grandfather 
 is a baron too; he was procureur-general under the 
 Restoration." 
 
 "You blush, young man; you mustn't blush
 
 THE NOVICE 349 
 
 because, being a baron, you are poor that is very 
 common." 
 
 "Who told you that we are poor, monsieur?" 
 
 "Why, your grandfather told me that he passed 
 the night in the Champs-Elysees; and although I 
 know of no palace where there is so beautiful a 
 ceiling as that which shone over the Champs-Ely- 
 sees at two o'clock this morning, I assure you that 
 it was cold where your grandfather was walking. 
 People don't select the Hotel de la Belle Etoile*from 
 choice." 
 
 "Has my grandfather just left you?" said 
 Auguste, seizing upon that excuse to take his leave. 
 "I thank you, monsieur, and, if you will permit me, 
 I will come to inquire for my mother." 
 
 Once out of the house the young baron went to 
 the bailiff's office, taking a cab in order to reach his 
 destination more speedily, and paid his grand- 
 father's debt. The bailiff handed him the notes and 
 a receipt for the costs, then bade the young man 
 take one of his clerks with him in order to discharge 
 the keeper. 
 
 "As Messieurs Barbet and Metivier live in 
 your quarter," he added, "my young man will carry 
 them the money and tell them to hand you the 
 mortgage." 
 
 Auguste, who understood none of those terms or 
 formalities, did as he was told. He received seven 
 hundred francs in change, out of the four thousand, 
 and went away with the clerk. He entered the cab 
 
 * That is, the open air.
 
 350 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 in an indescribable condition of bewilderment; for, 
 now that the result was obtained, the remorse 
 began, and he imagined himself disgraced, cursed 
 by his grandfather, whose inflexibility was well 
 known to him; and he believed that his mother 
 would die of grief when she knew of what he had 
 been guilty. The whole face of nature changed in 
 his eyes. He was burning hot, he did not see the 
 snow, the houses seemed like spectres to him. 
 When he reached home, the young baron formed 
 his plan, which certainly indicated honesty of 
 purpose: he went to his mother's room and took the 
 diamond-studded snuff-box that the Emperor had 
 given his grandfather, with the intention of sending 
 it to Doctor Halpersohn together with the seven 
 hundred francs and the following letter, which 
 required several rough drafts: 
 
 "MONSIEUR, 
 
 "The results of twenty years' toil on my grandfather's 
 part were on the point of being swallowed up by usurers who 
 threatened his liberty. Three thousand three hundred francs 
 would save him, and, seeing so much money on your table, 
 I was unable to resist the temptation to set my grandfather 
 free and at the same time restore to him the fruits of his 
 vigils. I borrowed from you, without your consent, four 
 thousand francs; but as only three thousand three hundred 
 francs were needed, I send you the other seven hundred, and 
 I send with them a snuff-box set with diamonds, given to my 
 grandfather by the Emperor, the value of which will make up 
 the difference. 
 
 "Even if you should not believe in the honorable motives 
 of him who will always look upon you as his benefactor, if 
 you will deign to say nothing concerning an act that would
 
 THE NOVICE 351 
 
 be unjustifiable under any other circumstances, you will save 
 my grandfather as well as my mother, and I shall be your 
 devoted slave as long as I live. 
 
 "AUGUSTE DE MERGI." 
 
 About half-past two, Auguste, who had walked 
 as far as the Champs-Elysees, sent a messenger to 
 Doctor Halpersohn's door with a sealed box con- 
 taining ten louis, a bank-note for five hundred francs 
 and the snuff-box; then he returned home slowly 
 on foot, by Pont d'lena, the Invalides and the 
 boulevards, relying upon Doctor Halpersohn's 
 generosity. The doctor, who had discovered the 
 theft, had at once changed his opinion concerning 
 his clients. He believed that the old man had come 
 for the purpose of robbing him, and that, having 
 been unsuccessful, he had sent the boy. He 
 conceived doubts as to the titles they assumed, and 
 he went at once to the office of the king's attorney 
 to enter a complaint, requesting that they should be 
 prosecuted at once. 
 
 The prudence with which the law proceeds rarely 
 allows such swift progress as the aggrieved parties 
 desire; but, about three o'clock, a commissioner of 
 police, accompanied by several officers who saun- 
 tered up and down the boulevards, was interrogating 
 Mere Vauthier concerning her tenants, and the 
 widow unwittingly added to the commissioner's 
 suspicions. 
 
 Nepomucne, who had a keen scent for police 
 agents, supposed that they had come to arrest the 
 old man; and, as he was devoted to Auguste, he
 
 352 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 hurried away to warn Monsieur Bernard, whom he 
 discovered on Avenue de 1'Observatoire. 
 
 "Run away, monsieur!" he cried, "they've come 
 to arrest you. The bailiffs are hiding in your room; 
 they've seized everything. Mere Vauthier, who 
 kept some stamped papers away from you, said 
 you'd sleep at Clichy to-night or to-morrow. Look, 
 do you see those fellows?" 
 
 A glance was sufficient to enable the ex-procureur- 
 general to recognize bailiff's followers in the police 
 agents, and he divined what had happened. 
 
 "What of Monsieur Godefroid?" 
 
 "Gone for good. Mere Vauthier says he was a 
 spy for your enemies." 
 
 The baron at once determined to see Barbet, and 
 he was at his house of business within a quarter of 
 an hour: the former publisher lived on Rue Sainte 
 Catherine d'Enfer. 
 
 "Ah! you have come for your mortgage?" said 
 he, returning his victim's salutation; "here it is." 
 
 And, to Baron Bourlac's unbounded amazement, 
 he handed him the document. 
 
 "I do not understand," he said, as he took it. 
 
 "Wasn't it you who paid me?" rejoined the 
 publisher. 
 
 "You say you have been paid?" 
 
 "Your grandson carried the money to the bailiff 
 this morning." 
 
 "Is it true that you levied on me yesterday?" 
 
 "You hadn't been at home for two days, had 
 you?" demanded Barbet; "a procureur-general
 
 THE NOVICE 353 
 
 ought to know what arrest on mesne process 
 means." 
 
 When he heard that phrase, the baron bowed 
 coldly to Barbet and returned homeward, concluding 
 that the officers must be there in search of the two 
 authors in hiding on the second floor. He walked 
 slowly, absorbed by vague forebodings of evil; for, 
 as he proceeded, Nepomucene's words seemed more 
 and more obscure and inexplicable to him. Could 
 Godefroid really have betrayed him? He turned 
 instinctively into Rue Notre-Dame des Champs and 
 went in at the low door, which happened to be open. 
 In the passage he stumbled upon Nepomucene. 
 
 "Oh! monsieur, come quick! They're taking 
 Monsieur Auguste away to prison! They caught 
 him on the boulevard; he's the one they were 
 looking for; they've been asking him questions 
 
 The old man leaped forward like a tiger, and flew 
 through the house and garden to the boulevard, like 
 an arrow from a bow. He arrived in time to see his 
 grandson entering a cab, surrounded by three men. 
 
 "Auguste," he cried, "what does this mean?" 
 
 The young man burst into tears and fainted. 
 
 "Monsieur, I am Baron Bourlac, once procureur- 
 general," said the baron to the commissioner of 
 police, whose official scarf caught his eye; "in pity's 
 name, explain this to me!" 
 
 "If you are Baron Bourlac, monsieur, you will 
 understand the whole thing in two words: I have 
 just questioned this young man, and unluckily he 
 has confessed " 
 23
 
 354 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "The theft of four thousand francs from Doctor 
 Halpersohn." 
 
 "Is it possible, Auguste?" 
 
 "I sent him your diamond snuff-box for security, 
 grandpa. I wanted to save you from the disgrace 
 of going to prison!" 
 
 "Unhappy boy, what have you done?" cried the 
 baron. "The diamonds are false, I sold the genuine 
 ones three years ago." 
 
 The commissioner of police and his clerk exchanged 
 a meaning glance. That glance, which said many 
 things, surprised and overwhelmed Baron Bourlac. 
 
 "Monsieur le Commissaire," he said, "never fear, 
 I will go and see the king's attorney; but you can 
 bear witness to the fact that I have deceived my 
 grandson and my daughter. You must do your 
 duty; but, in the name of humanity, release my 
 grandson. I will go to prison. Where are you 
 taking him?" 
 
 "Are you Baron Bourlac?" demanded the com- 
 missioner. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "Monsieur le procureur du roi, the examining 
 magistrate and myself could not believe that such 
 people as you and your grandson could be guilty of 
 this offense, and we agreed with the doctor that 
 some knaves must have borrowed your names." 
 
 He led the baron aside. 
 
 "You went to Doctor Halpersohn's this morning?" 
 he asked.
 
 THE NOVICE 355 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "And your grandson went there half an hour 
 later?" 
 
 "I cannot say, monsieur, for I have just come home 
 and I haven't seen my grandson since yesterday." 
 
 "The summonses he showed us and the envelope 
 explain the whole thing," said the commissioner, 
 "and I know the motive of the crime. Monsieur, I 
 ought to arrest you as your grandson's confederate, 
 for your replies substantiate the facts alleged in the 
 complaint; but the documents which have been 
 served upon you, and which I return to you," he 
 said, handing the baron a package of stamped papers 
 which he held in his hand, "prove that you are 
 really Baron Bourlac. However, be ready to appear 
 before Monsieur Marest, the examining magistrate 
 who has this affair in charge. I think it my duty to 
 relax the usual rigor of the law in consideration of 
 your former position. As for your grandson, I will 
 speak to Monsieur le procureur du roi when I return, 
 and we shall have all possible consideration for the 
 grandson of a former first president, the victim of a 
 youthful error. But there has been a complaint, 
 the culprit has confessed, I have prepared a return 
 and there is a warrant for his arrest; I can do 
 nothing. As for the place of confinement, we shall 
 take your grandson to the Conciergerie." 
 
 "Thanks, monsieur," said the unhappy Bourlac. 
 
 He fell flat in the snow and rolled into one of the 
 basins that then separated the trees along the 
 boulevard.
 
 356 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 The commissioner called for help and Nepomucene 
 ran to the spot with Mere Vauthier. They carried 
 the old man to his room and Dame Vauthier requested 
 the commissioner, as he passed through Rue d'Enfer 
 to send Doctor Berton as quickly as possible. 
 
 "What is the matter with my grandfather?" 
 asked poor Auguste. 
 
 "He is mad, monsieur! That's what comes of 
 stealing!" 
 
 Auguste tried to beat his head against the side of 
 the cab, but the two agents held him. 
 
 "Come, come, young man, be calm!" said the 
 commissioner, "be calm! You have done wrong, 
 but it isn't beyond repair." 
 
 "But, monsieur, I beg you tell that woman that 
 my grandfather probably has had nothing to eat for 
 twenty-four hours!" 
 
 "Oh! the poor creatures!" muttered the commis- 
 sioner. 
 
 He stopped the cab, and said a word in the ear of 
 his secretary, who ran and spoke to Dame Vauthier, 
 and returned at once.
 
 Monsieur Berton decided that the illness of Mon- 
 sieur Bernard for he knew him by no other name 
 was a violent attack of fever; but after the widow 
 Vauthier had narrated, in true concierge style, the 
 events that had caused his condition, he deemed it 
 his duty to inform Monsieur Alain of the state of 
 affairs the following morning, and Monsieur Alain at 
 once wrote a line to Monsieur Nicolas on Rue 
 Chanoinesse, and sent it by a messenger. 
 
 When Godefroid returned, on the preceding even- 
 ing, he had handed the notes and citations to 
 Monsieur Nicolas, who passed the greater part of 
 the night reading the first volume of Baron Bourlac's 
 work. 
 
 The next morning Madame de la Chanterie 
 informed the novice that, if he still held to his 
 determination, he was to set to work at once. 
 Godefroid, being enlightened by her as to the 
 financial secrets of the association, worked seven 
 or eight hours a day for several months, under the 
 supervision of Frederic Mongenod, who came every 
 Sunday to examine his work, and from whom he 
 received hearty praise. 
 
 "You are a valuable acquisition to the saints with 
 
 whom you live," he said, when all the accounts 
 
 were systematized and properly opened. "Now, 
 
 two or three hours a day will suffice to keep the 
 
 (357)
 
 358 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 books in running order, and the rest of the time you 
 can assist your friends, if you still have the inclina- 
 tion you manifested six months ago." 
 
 It was then the month of July, 1838. During 
 the whole time that had passed since the episode of 
 Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, Godefroid, who was 
 resolved to show himself worthy of his friends, had 
 not asked a single question concerning Baron 
 Bourlac; for, as he never heard the name men- 
 tioned, and as he found no reference to the affair 
 among the papers, he concluded that the silence 
 maintained concerning the two persecutors of 
 Madame de la Chanterie's family, was intended 
 either as a test for him to undergo, or as a proof 
 that that sublime woman's friends had avenged 
 her. 
 
 He had, it is true, walked as far as Boulevard du 
 Mont-Parnasse, about two months after the dis- 
 covery of Monsieur Bernard's identity, had succeeded 
 in meeting the widow Vauthier and had questioned 
 her concerning the family. 
 
 "As if anyone knew what's become of those 
 people, my dear Monsieur Godefroid! Two days 
 after your exploit for it was you, you fox, that 
 whispered in my landlord's ear, some men came 
 here and rid us of that stuck-up old fool. Bah! 
 they moved everything out inside of twenty-four 
 hours, and that's the end of 'em! No one would 
 say a word to me. I believe he's gone to Algiers 
 with his thief of a grandson; for Nepomucene, who 
 had a weak spot for the thief indeed, he isn't
 
 THE NOVICE 359 
 
 much better himself couldn't find him at the 
 Conciergerie, and he's the only one who knows 
 where they are; the little rascal has run away from 
 me. That comes of bringing up foundlings! that's 
 the way they reward you, by making trouble for 
 you. I haven't been able to find anybody yet to 
 take his place; and as the quarter's filling up, the 
 whole house is let and I'm worn out with work." 
 
 Godefroid would never have known anything 
 more concerning Baron Bourlac, except for one of 
 the accidental meetings that so often happen in 
 Paris, and the resulting conclusion of the episode. 
 
 In the month of September, Godefroid was walk- 
 ing down Avenue des Champs-Elysees, and as he 
 passed Rue Marbeuf, Doctor Halpersohn came to 
 his mind. 
 
 "I ought to go and see him," he said to himself, 
 "and see if he cured Bourlac's daughter! What a 
 voice and what talent she had! She intended to 
 devote her life to God!" 
 
 When he reached the crossing, Godefroid hurried 
 across because of the swiftly-moving carriages, and 
 he jostled a young man who had a young lady on 
 his arm. 
 
 "Take care!" cried the young man; "are you 
 blind?" 
 
 "What, is it you?" rejoined Godefroid, recogniz- 
 ing Auguste de Mergi. 
 
 Auguste was so well dressed, so dandified, and 
 so proud to have the lady on his arm, that the 
 novice would not have recognized him, except for
 
 360 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 the memories with which his mind was filled at the 
 moment. 
 
 "Why! it is our dear Monsieur Godefroid!" said 
 the lady. 
 
 When he heard the divine notes of Vanda's 
 heavenly voice, and saw that she was actually 
 walking, Godefroid's feet were nailed to the spot 
 where he stood. 
 
 "Cured!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Ten days ago he allowed me to walk!" she 
 replied. 
 
 "Halpersohn?" 
 
 "Yes. And how is it that you have not been to 
 see us?" she continued. "But you did well! My 
 hair was cut off only a week ago! What you see 
 now is a wig; but the doctor gave me his word that 
 it would grow again! How many things we have 
 to say to each other! Come and dine with us, 
 pray! Oh! your accordion! O monsieur!" 
 
 She put her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 "I shall keep it all my life! My son will preserve 
 it as a sacred relic! My father has hunted Paris 
 over for you; he is searching for his unknown 
 benefactors too, and he will die of disappointment 
 if you do not help him to find them. He is consumed 
 by black melancholy, which I cannot overcome 
 every day." 
 
 Fascinated by the voice of that lovely creature 
 rescued from the grave as well as by the voice of a 
 devouring curiosity, Godefroid offered his arm to 
 receive the hand that the Baronne de Mergi held
 
 IN THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES 
 
 "What, is it you?" rejoined Godefroid, recogniz- 
 ing Augusts de Mergi. 
 
 Auguste was so well dressed, so dandified, and so 
 proud to have the lady on Ids arm, that the novice 
 would not have recognized Jiim, except for the mem- 
 ories with which his mind was filled at the moment. 
 
 " Why / it is our dear Monsieur Godefroid ! " said 
 the lady.
 
 DtU.n
 
 THE NOVICE 361 
 
 out; she sent her son ahead after giving him his 
 instructions with a movement of the head, which 
 he seemed to understand. 
 
 "I am not taking you very far, we live on Allee 
 d'Antin in a pretty house of the English pattern; 
 we occupy the whole of it; each of us has a floor. 
 Oh! we are very comfortable. My father believes 
 that you have much to do with the happiness by 
 which we are overwhelmed!" 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Do you not know that, upon a report from the 
 Minister of Public Instruction, they have created a 
 professorship of legislation for him, like that at the 
 Sorbonne? My father is to begin his first course of 
 lectures in November. The great work he was en- 
 gaged upon will appear in a month; the house of 
 Cavalier is to publish it, dividing the profits with 
 father, and they have advanced him thirty thousand 
 francs on account of his share; so he is thinking of 
 buying the house we now live in. The Department 
 of Justice allows me a pension of twelve hundred 
 francs, as the daughter of a former magistrate; 
 father has his pension of three thousand francs and 
 five thousand as professor. We are so economical 
 that we are almost rich. My Auguste is going to 
 begin his law studies in two months; but he is a 
 clerk now in the procureur-general's office, and 
 earns twelve hundred francs. Ah! Monsieur Gode- 
 froid, do not speak of my poor Auguste's unfortunate 
 affair. I bless him every morning for what he did, 
 but his grandfather hasn't forgiven him yet! His
 
 362 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 mother blesses him, Halpersohn adores him and the 
 ex-procureur-general is implacable!" 
 
 "What affair?" said Godefroid. 
 
 "Ah! I recognize your generous nature in that!" 
 cried Vanda. "What a noble heart you have! 
 Your mother must be proud of you." 
 
 She stopped, as if she had felt a pain in her heart. 
 
 "I swear to you that I know nothing whatever 
 about the affair you mention," said Godefroid. 
 
 "Really, you have not heard of it?" 
 
 In artless fashion she told the story of Auguste's 
 forced loan from the doctor, lauding her son's action. 
 
 "If we may not mention the subject before Baron 
 Bourlac," said Godefroid, "pray tell us how your 
 son escaped the consequences." 
 
 "Why," replied Vanda, "I told you, I think, that 
 he is now a clerk to the procureur-general, who is 
 most kind to him. He remained only forty-eight 
 hours in the Conciergerie, where he was lodged in 
 the governor's apartments. The good doctor, who 
 did not receive Auguste's beautiful, sublime letter 
 until the evening, withdrew his complaint; and 
 through the intervention of a former president of one 
 of the royal courts, whom my father has never seen, 
 the procureur-general annulled the report of the 
 commissioner of police and the warrant. In fact 
 there is no trace of the affair in existence, elsewhere 
 than in my heart, in my son's conscience and in 
 the mind of his grandfather, who, since that day, 
 always calls Augusteyou instead of thou, and treats 
 him like a stranger. No later than yesterday
 
 THE NOVICE 363 
 
 Halpersohn was asking forgiveness for him; but my 
 father, who refuses even me, whom he loves so 
 dearly, replied: 'You are the person he robbed, you 
 can and should forgive; but I am responsible for the 
 thief and, when I was procureur-general, I never 
 forgave!' 'You will kill your daughter!' said Halper- 
 sohn; I was listening. My father said nothing." 
 
 "But who has helped you?" 
 
 "A gentleman whom we believe to be employed 
 to distribute the queen's bounty." 
 
 "What sort of man is he?" asked Godefroid. 
 
 "He is a thin, solemn-faced, melancholy man, of 
 the same general type as father. It was he who 
 had my father taken to the house where we now 
 live, when he had the attack of fever. Just 
 imagine that, as soon as father recovered, I was 
 taken from the hospital to that same house and 
 comfortably settled in my room, as if I had never 
 left it. Halpersohn, whom the tall gentleman had 
 won over, I don't know how, told me then of all 
 the suffering father had undergone: the diamonds 
 from his snuff-box sold! and father and son, most 
 of the time without a crust and pretending to be 
 rich in my presence! O Monsieur Godefroid, those 
 two are genuine martyrs. What can I say to my 
 father? I can only do to both of them as they have 
 done to me, by suffering for them." 
 
 "Has this tall gentleman something of a military 
 air?" 
 
 "Ah! you know him!" cried Vanda, as they 
 reached the door of the house.
 
 364 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 She seized Godefroid's hand with the convulsive 
 strength of a woman suffering from a nervous 
 attack, she dragged him into a salon, the door of 
 which stood open, and cried: 
 
 "Father, Monsieur Godefroid knows our bene- 
 factor!" 
 
 Baron Bourlac, dressed in a costume befitting a 
 former magistrate of such high rank, rose and offered 
 Godefroid his hand. 
 
 "I suspected as much!" he said. 
 
 Godefroid made a gesture intended to disclaim any 
 share in the results of that noble revenge; but the 
 ex-procureur-general did not give him time to speak. 
 
 "Ah! monsieur," he continued, "only Providence 
 is more powerful, only love more ingenious, only 
 maternal affection more clear-sighted than your 
 friends, who have some of the characteristics of 
 those three great divinities. I bless the chance to 
 which we owe our meeting; for Monsieur Joseph 
 has disappeared forever, and as he succeeded in 
 avoiding all the traps that I set to learn his true 
 name and his residence, I should have died of 
 chagrin at last. See, here is his letter. But do 
 you know him?" 
 
 Godefroid read the following lines: 
 
 "Monsieur le Baron Bourlac, the sums which we have 
 expended for you, under the instructions of a charitable lady, 
 amount to fifteen thousand francs. Make a note of the 
 amount, so that they may be repaid, either by yourself or by 
 your descendants, when the circumstances of your family 
 permit; for it is the money of the poor. When this restitution
 
 THE NOVICE 365 
 
 is possible, pay the amount of your indebtedness at the 
 banking house of Mongenod Freres. May God forgive you 
 your sins!" 
 
 The signature to the letter was most mysterious, 
 consisting of five crosses. Godefroid returned it to 
 the baron. 
 
 "The five crosses are there!" he said to himself. 
 
 "Ah! monsieur," said the old man, "you know all 
 about it, you were once this mysterious lady's 
 agent tell me her name." 
 
 "Her name!" cried Godefroid, "her name! 
 Never ask it, unhappy man! never seek to learn 
 it! Ah! madame," he continued, taking Madame 
 de Mergi's trembling hands in his, "if you care for 
 your father's reason, see to it that he remains in his 
 ignorance, that he does not take the slightest step!" 
 
 Father, daughter and Auguste were transfixed 
 with wonder. 
 
 "Who is she?" asked Vanda. 
 
 "Very well, if you insist," replied Godefroid, 
 gazing fixedly at the old man, "the woman who has 
 saved your daughter, who has restored her to you, 
 young and fair and blooming with renewed life, who 
 has snatched her from the coffin; the woman who 
 spared you the disgrace of your grandson, who 
 has made your old age happy and honored, who has 
 saved you all three " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "Is a woman whom you sent, although innocent, 
 to prison for twenty years!" he cried, hurling the 
 words at Baron Bourlac; "upon whom you, as
 
 366 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 procureur-general, heaped the most cruel insults, 
 whose sanctity you outraged, and from whose arms 
 you tore a lovely daughter, to consign her to the 
 most horrible of 'deaths for she was guillotined!" 
 
 Seeing that Vanda had fallen, fainting, upon a 
 chair, Godefroid rushed into the hall, thence into 
 Allee d'Antin, and ran away at the top of his speed. 
 
 "If you want to be forgiven," said Baron Bourlac 
 to his grandson, "follow that man and find out 
 where he lives!" 
 
 Auguste darted away like an arrow. 
 
 The next morning, at half-past eight, Baron 
 Bourlac knocked at the old yellow gate of the Hotel 
 de la Chanterie on Rue Chanoinesse. He inquired 
 for Madame de la Chanterie and the concierge 
 pointed to the steps. Luckily it was the breakfast 
 hour and Godefroid spied the baron in the court- 
 yard, through one of the windows by which the 
 staircase was lighted; he had barely time to hurry 
 downstairs, burst into the salon, where the whole 
 household was assembled, and cry out: 
 
 "Baron Bourlac!" 
 
 When she heard that name, Madame de la Chan- 
 terie withdrew to her room, supported by Abbe de 
 Veze. 
 
 "You sha'n't come in, you limb of Satan!" cried 
 Manon, who recognized the procureur-general, and 
 took her stand in front of the door of the salon. 
 "Have you come to kill Madame?" 
 
 "Nonsense, Manon, let monsieur pass," said 
 Monsieur Alain.
 
 THE NOVICE 367 
 
 Manon sank upon a chair as if both legs had given 
 way at once. 
 
 "Messieurs," said the baron in a voice expressive 
 of the most profound emotion, as he recognized 
 Godefroid and Monsieur Joseph and saluted the 
 two others, "benevolence confers some rights upon 
 its object!" 
 
 "You owe us nothing, monsieur," said honest 
 Alain, "you owe everything to God." 
 
 "You are saints and you have the tranquillity of 
 saints," rejoined the ex-magistrate. "You will 
 listen to me! I know that the more than human 
 benefactions that have been heaped upon me in the 
 past eighteen months are the work of a person 
 whom I seriously wounded in the discharge of my 
 duty; it was fifteen years before I was satisfied of 
 her innocence, and that, gentlemen, is the only 
 thing in my official career for which I feel remorse. 
 Listen! I have but little time to live, but I shall lose 
 that little, still so necessary to the welfare of my 
 children whom Madame de la Chanterie has saved, 
 if I cannot obtain my pardon from her. Messieurs, 
 I will remain on the steps of Notre-Dame, on my 
 knees, until she says a word to me. I will await 
 her there. I will kiss her footprints, I will find tears 
 to move her heart, although my child's sufferings 
 have drained my heart as dry as straw." 
 
 The door of Madame de la Chanterie's room 
 opened, Abbe de Veze glided out like a shadow, and 
 said to Monsieur Joseph: 
 
 "That voice is killing Madame!"
 
 368 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 "Ah! is she there? did she go that way?" 
 exclaimed Baron Bourlac. 
 
 He fell on his knees, kissed the floor, burst into 
 tears, and cried in a heartrending voice: 
 
 "In the name of Jesus, who died on the Cross, 
 forgive me! forgive me! for my daughter has 
 suffered a thousand deaths!" 
 
 The old man was so prostrated, that the moved 
 spectators believed him dead. At that moment 
 Madame de la Chanterie appeared like a ghost at 
 the door of her chamber, and leaned, trembling, 
 against the door-frame. 
 
 "By Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, whom I see 
 upon their scaffold, by Madame Elisabeth, by my 
 daughter, by your daughter, by Jesus Christ, I for- 
 give you!" 
 
 At the last words the former magistrate raised his 
 eyes and said: 
 
 "Thus do the angels revenge themselves!" 
 
 Monsieur Joseph and Monsieur Nicolas assisted 
 Baron Bourlac to rise, and led him into the court- 
 yard; Godefroid went to call a cab, and when it 
 arrived, Monsieur Nicolas said, as he helped the old 
 man to enter: 
 
 "Do not come here again, monsieur; if you do, 
 you will kill the mother too, for God's power is 
 infinite, but human nature has its limits." 
 
 That same day Godefroid was admitted to the 
 order of the Brethren of Consolation. 
 
 Vierzchovnia, Ukraine, December, 1847.
 
 LIST OF ETCHINGS 
 
 VOLUME XXXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN CHESNAY WOOD Fronts. 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF CONSOLATION 64 
 
 THE RETURN OF MONGENOD 144 
 
 GODEFROID MEETS M. BERNARD 240 
 
 IN THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES 360 
 
 35 C. H., Z. Marcas, N. & R. 369
 
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