1892 Souvestre - 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Foru L-l 
 
 VOL 
 
 1602,
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 3 192f 
 
 IY 13 193 
 
 L-9-2w-7,'22
 
 M 
 
 fa 
 
 p ( I fall ' 
 
 That pretty lady yonder. 
 
 (Page 42.)
 
 AN 
 
 ATTIC PHILOSOPHER 
 IN PARIS 
 
 OR, A PEEP AT THE WORLD 
 FROM A GARRET, BEING THE 
 JOURNAL OF A HAPPY 
 
 :,KR'QM;TjHF FRENCH OF 
 
 EMILE SOUVESTRE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1895
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
 
 pa 
 r.4-?^ 
 
 5 n e~p 6 ~ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 7 
 
 I. THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS 9 
 
 II. THE CARNIVAL 20 
 
 III. WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW . . 34 
 
 IV. LET us LOVE ONE ANOTHER 46 
 
 V. COMPENSATION 59 
 
 VI. UNCLE MAURICE 73 
 
 VII. THE PRICE OF POWER AND THE WORTH OF FAME . . .89 
 
 VIII. MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE 106 
 
 IX. THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT 119 
 
 X. OUR COUNTRY 136 
 
 XI. MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES 155 
 
 XII. THE END OF THE YEAR . . . . . . . .175
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 That pretty lady yonder . . . . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 My window is surrounded with sparrows .... . . 13 
 
 A poor girl comes in, and greets me by name . . . Facing 14 
 
 " Every one keeps his holidays in his own way " 26 
 
 My wallflower begins to blow again 36 
 
 He remained mute and motionless ....... 50 
 
 The contrast in their dress struck me Facing 54 
 
 For a few moments I forgot myself with looking about . . .70 
 I plucked the flower from the stem ..... Facing 78 
 
 There was the same beautiful smile ....... 98 
 
 " It is a Deutaria heptaphyllos" said he ...... 101 
 
 I heard the sound of quarrelling in the back shop . . Facing 121 
 
 I saw again my mother's gentle face Facing 157 
 
 She sees herself, again a child . . . . . . -171 
 I had before me only an honest citizen ...... 185 
 
 WITH HEAD AND TAIL PIECES KOR EACH CHAPTER.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 WE know a man who, in the midst of the fever of 
 restlessness and of ambition which racks society in our 
 times, continues to fill his humble part in the world 
 without a murmur, and who still preserves, so to speak, 
 the taste for poverty. With no other fortune than 
 a small clerkship, which enables him to live within the 
 narrow limits which separate competence from want, 
 our philosopher looks from the height of his attic 
 upon society as upon a sea, of which he neither covets 
 the riches nor fears the wrecks. Being too insignifi- 
 cant to excite the envy of any one, he sleeps peacefully, 
 wrapped in his obscurity. 
 
 Not that he retreats into egotism, as a tortoise into 
 its shell ! He is the man of whom Terence says that 
 " nothing human seems foreign to him ! " All external 
 objects and incidents are reflected in his mind as in a 
 camera obscura, which presents their images in a 
 picture. He " looks at society as it is, in itself," with 
 the patient curiousness which belongs to recluses ; 
 and he writes a monthly journal of what he has seen 
 or thought. It is the " Calendar of his Impressions," 
 as he is wont to call it.
 
 8 A D VER T I SEMEN T. 
 
 We have been allowed to look over it, and have 
 extracted some pages which may make the reader 
 acquainted with the commonplace adventures of an 
 unknown thinker in those twelve hostelries of Time 
 called Months.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS. 
 
 January ist. The day of the 
 month came into my mind as 
 soon as I awoke. Another year 
 is separated from the chain of 
 ages, and drops into the gulf of 
 the past ! The crowd hasten to 
 
 welcome her young sister. But while all looks are 
 turned towards the future, mine revert to the past. 
 Every one smiles upon the new queen ; but, in spite of 
 myself, I think of her whom time has just wrapped 
 in her winding-sheet. The past year ! at least I know 
 what she was, and what she has given me ; while this 
 one comes surrounded by all the forebodings of the 
 unknown. What does she hide in the clouds which 
 mantle her ? Is it the storm, or the sunshine ? Just 
 now it rains, and I feel my mind as gloomy as the sky. 
 I have a holiday to-day ; but what can one do with a 
 rainy day ? I walk up and down my attic out of tem- 
 per, and I determine to light my fire.
 
 IO 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Unfortunately the matches are bad, the chimney 
 smokes, the wood goes out ! I throw down my bellows 
 in disgust, and sink into my old arm-chair. 
 
 In truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth of 
 a new year ? All those who are already in the streets, 
 with the holiday looks and smiling faces do they un- 
 derstand what makes them so gay? Do they even 
 know what is the meaning of this holiday, or whence 
 comes the custom of New-Year's gifts ? 
 
 Here my mind pauses to prove to itself its su- 
 periority over that of the vulgar. I make a paren- 
 thesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, and I 
 bring together all the evidence which my knowledge 
 can produce 
 
 (The old Romans divided the year into ten months 
 only ; it was Numa Pompilius who added January and 
 February. The former took its name from Janus, to 
 whom it was dedicated. As it opened the new year, 
 they surrounded its commencement with good omens, 
 and thence came the custom of visits between neigh- 
 bors, of wishing happiness, and of New-Years gifts. 
 The presents 'given by the Romans were symbolic. 
 They consisted of dry figs, dates, honeycomb, as em- 
 blems of " the sweetness of the auspices under which 
 the year should begin its course," and a small piece of 
 money called stips, which foreboded riches.) 
 
 Here I close the parenthesis, and return to my ill- 
 humor. The little speech* I have just addressed to 
 myself has restored me my self-satisfaction, but made 
 
 * Spitck, in the original.
 
 THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS. TI 
 
 me more dissatisfied with others. I could now enjoy 
 my breakfast ; but the portress has forgotten my morn- 
 ing's milk, and the pot of preserves is empty ! Any 
 one else would have been vexed : as for me, I affect 
 the most supreme indifference. There remains a hard 
 crust, which I break by main strength, and which I 
 carelessly nibble, as a man far above the vanities of 
 the world and of fresh rolls. 
 
 However, I do not know why my thoughts should 
 grow more gloomy by reason of the difficulties of 
 mastication. I once read the story of an Englishman 
 who hanged himself because they had brought him 
 his tea without sugar. There are hours in life when 
 the most trifling cross takes the form of a calamity. 
 Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which makes the 
 object small or great according to the end you look 
 through. 
 
 Generally, the prospect which opens out before my 
 window delights me. It is a mountain range of roofs, 
 with ridges crossing, interlacing, and piled on one 
 another, and upon which tall chimneys raise their peaks. 
 It was but yesterday that they had an Alpine aspect 
 to me, and I waited for the first snow-storm to see 
 glaciers among them ; to-day, I only see tiles and stone 
 flues. The pigeons, which assisted my rural illusions, 
 seem no more than miserable birds which have mis- 
 taken the roof for the back yard ; the smoke which 
 rises in light clouds, instead of making me dream of 
 the panting of Vesuvius, reminds me of kitchen prepara- 
 tions and dish-water; and lastly, the telegraph, that
 
 12 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I see far off on the old tower of Montmartre, has the 
 effect of a vile gallows stretching its arms over the 
 city. 
 
 My eyes, thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon the 
 great man's house which faces my attic. 
 
 The influence of New-Year's Day is visible there. 
 The servants have an air of eagerness proportioned to 
 the value of their New-Year's gifts, received or ex- 
 pected. I see the master of the house crossing the 
 court with the morose look of a man who is forced to 
 be generous ; and the visitors increase, followed by 
 shop porters who carry flowers, band-boxes, or toys. 
 All at once the great gates are opened, and a new 
 carriage, drawn by thorough-bred horses, draws up 
 before the door-steps. They are, without doubt, the 
 New-Year's gift presented to the mistress of the house 
 by her husband ; for she comes herself to look at the 
 new equipage. Very soon she gets into it with a little 
 girl, all streaming with laces, feathers, and velvets, and 
 loaded with parcels which she goes to distribute as 
 New-Year's gifts. The door is shut, the windows 
 are drawn up, the carriage sets off. 
 
 Thus all the world are exchanging good wishes and 
 presents to-day : I alone have nothing to give or to re- 
 ceive. Poor Solitary ! I do not even know one chosen 
 being for whom I might offer a prayer. 
 
 Then let my wishes for a happy New Year go, and 
 seek out all my unknown friends lost in the multitude 
 which murmurs like the ocean at my feet! 
 
 To you first, hermits in cities, for whom death and
 
 THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS. 13 
 
 poverty have created a solitude in the midst of the 
 crowd ! unhappy labourers, who are condemned to toil 
 in melancholy, and eat your daily bread in silence and 
 desertion, and whom God has withdrawn from the in- 
 toxicating pangs of love or friendship ! 
 
 To you, fond dreamers, who pass through life with 
 your eyes turned toward some polar star, while you 
 tread with indifference over the rich harvests of reality ! 
 
 To you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the even- 
 ing to maintain your families ! to you, poor widows, 
 weeping and working by a cradle ! to you, young men, 
 resolutely set to open for yourselves a path in life, 
 large enough to lead through it the wife of your 
 choice ! to you, all brave soldiers of work and of self- 
 sacrifice ! 
 
 To you, lastly, whatever your title and your name, 
 who love good, who pity the suffering ; who walk 
 through the world like the symbolical Virgin of Byzan- 
 tium, with both arms open to the human race ! 
 
 Here I am suddenly interrupted by loud and in- 
 creasing chirpings. I look about me : my window is 
 surrounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of
 
 !4 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 bread which in my brown study I had just scattered on 
 the roof. At this sight a flash of light broke upon my 
 saddened heart. I deceived myself just now, when I 
 complained that I had nothing to give : thanks to me, 
 the sparrows of this part of the town will have their 
 New-Year's gifts ! 
 
 T^velve o'clock, A knock at my door ; a poor girl 
 comes in, and greets me by name. At first I do not rec- 
 ollect her ; but she looks at me and smiles. Ah ! it is 
 Paulette ! But it is almost a year since I have seen her, 
 and Paulette is no longer the same : the other day she 
 was a child, now she is almost a young woman. 
 
 Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad ; but she 
 has always the same open and straightforward look the 
 same mouth, smiling at every word, as if to court your 
 sympathy the same voice, somewhat timid, yet ex- 
 pressing fondness. Paulette is not pretty she is even 
 thought plain ; as for me, I think her charming. Per- 
 haps that is not on her account, but on my own. Paul- 
 ette appears to me as a part of one of my happiest rec- 
 ollections. 
 
 It was the evening of a public holiday. Our prin- 
 cipal buildings were illuminated with festoons of fire, a 
 thousand flags waved in the night winds, and the fire- 
 works had just shot forth their spouts of flame into the 
 midst of the Champ de Mars. All of a sudden, one of 
 those unaccountable alarms which strike a multitude 
 with panic fell upon the dense crowd : they cry out, 
 they rush on headlong ; the weaker ones fall, and the 
 frightened crowd tramples them down in its convulsive
 
 A poor girl comes in, and greets me by name.
 
 THE ATTIC NEW -YEAR'S GIFTS. ! r- 
 
 struggles. I escaped from the confusion by a miracle, 
 and was hastening away when the cries of a perishing 
 child arrested me : I re-entered that human chaos, and, 
 after unheard-of exertions, I brought Paulette out of it 
 at the peril of my life. 
 
 That was two years ago : since then I had not seen 
 the child again but at long intervals, and I had almost 
 forgotten her ; but Paulette's memory was that of a 
 grateful heart, and she came at the beginning of the year 
 to offer me her wishes for my happiness. She brought 
 me, besides, a wallflower in full bloom ; she herself had 
 planted and reared it : it was something that belonged 
 wholly to herself ; for it was by her care, her perse- 
 verance, and her patience, that she had obtained it. 
 
 The wallflower had grown in a common pot ; but 
 Paulette, who is a bandbox-maker, had put it into a case 
 of varnished paper, ornamented with arabesques. These 
 might have been in better taste, but I did not feel the 
 attention and good-will the less. 
 
 This unexpected present, the little girl's modest blush- 
 es, the compliments she stammered out, dispelled, as by 
 a sunbeam, the kind of mist which had gathered round 
 my mind ; my thoughts suddenly changed from the 
 leaden tints of evening to the brightest colors of dawn. 
 I made Paulette sit down, and questioned her with a 
 light heart. 
 
 At first the little girl replied by monosyllables ; but 
 very soon the tables were turned, and it was I who in- 
 terrupted with short interjections her long and con- 
 fidential talk. The poor child leads a hard life. She
 
 j6 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 was left an orphan long since, with a brother and sister, 
 and lives with an old grandmother, who has brought 
 them up to poverty, as she always calls it. 
 
 However, Paulette now helps her to make band- 
 boxes, her little sister Perrine begins to use the needle, 
 and her brother Henry is apprentice to a printer. All 
 would go well if it were not for losses and want of work 
 if it were not for clothes which wear out, for appetites 
 which grow larger, and for the winter, when you can 
 not get sunshine for nothing. Paulette complains that 
 her candles go too quickly, and that her wood costs too 
 much. The fireplace in their garret is so large that a 
 faggot makes no more show in it than a match ; it is 
 so near the roof that the wind blows the rain down it, 
 and in winter it hails upon the hearth ; so they have 
 left off using it. Henceforth they must be content with 
 an earthen chafing-dish, upon which they cook their 
 meals. The grandmother had often spoken of a stove 
 that was for sale at the broker's close by ; but he asked 
 seven francs for it, and the times are too hard for such 
 an expense : the family, therefore, resign themselves to 
 cold for economy ! 
 
 As Paulette spoke, I felt more and more that I was 
 losing my fretfulness and low spirits. The first dis- 
 closures of the little bandbox-maker created within me a 
 wish that soon became a plan. I questioned her about 
 her daily occupations, and she informed me that on 
 leaving me she must go, with her brother, her sister, 
 and grandmother, to the different people for whom they 
 work. My plan was immediately settled. I told the
 
 THE ATTIC NEIV-YEAR'S GIFTS. \j 
 
 child that I would go to see her in the evening, and I 
 sent her away with fresh thanks. 
 
 I placed the wallflower in the open window, where a 
 ray of sunshine bid it welcome : the birds were singing 
 around, the sky had cleared up, and the day, which be- 
 gan so loweringly, had become bright. I sang as I moved 
 about my room, and, having hastily put on my hat and 
 coat, I went out. 
 
 Three o'clock. All is settled with my neighbor, the 
 chimney-doctor ; he will repair my old stove, and an- 
 swers for its being as good as new. At five o'clock we 
 are to set out, and put it up in Paulette's grandmother's 
 room. 
 
 Midnight. All has gone off well. At the hour agreed 
 upon, I was at the old bandbox-maker's ; she was still 
 out. My Piedmontese * fixed the stove, while I arranged 
 a dozen logs in the great fireplace, taken from my 
 winter stock. I shall make up for them by warming 
 myself with walking, or by going to bed earlier. 
 
 My heart beat at every step which was heard on the 
 staircase ; I trembled lest they should interrupt me in 
 my preparations, and should thus spoil my intended sur- 
 prise. But no see everything ready : the lighted stove 
 murmurs gently, the little lamp burns upon the table, 
 and a bottle of oil for it is provided on the shelf. The 
 chimney-doctor is gone. Now, my fear lest they should 
 come is changed into impatience at their not coming. 
 At last I hear children's voices: here they are: they 
 
 * In Paris a chimney-sweeper is named " Piedmontese " or " Savoyard," 
 as they usually come from that country.
 
 1 8 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 push open the door and rush in but they all stop in 
 astonishment. 
 
 At the sight of the lamp, the stove, and the visitor, 
 who stands there like a magician in the midst of these 
 wonders, they draw back almost frightened. Paulette is 
 the first to comprehend it, and the arrival of the grand- 
 mother, who is more slowly mounting the stairs, finishes 
 the explanation. Then come tears, ecstasies, thanks ! 
 
 But the wonders are not yet ended. The little sister 
 opens the oven, and discovers some chestnuts just 
 roasted ; the grandmother puts her hand on the bottles 
 of cider arranged on the dresser ; and I draw forth 
 from the basket that I have hidden a cold tongue, a pot 
 of butter, and some fresh rolls. 
 
 Now their wonder turns into admiration ; the little 
 family have never seen such a feast ! They lay the 
 cloth, they sit down, they eat ; it is a complete banquet 
 for all, and each contributes his share to it. I had 
 brought only the supper : and the bandbox-maker and 
 her children supplied the enjoyment. 
 
 What bursts of laughter at nothing ! What a hub- 
 bub of questions which waited for no reply, of replies 
 which answered no question ! The old woman herself 
 shared in the wild merriment of the little ones ! I have 
 always been struck at the ease with which the poor for- 
 get their wretchedness. Being only used to live for 
 the present, they make a gain of every pleasure as soon 
 as it offers itself. But the surfeited rich are more diffi- 
 cult to satisfy : they require time and everything to suit 
 before they will consent to be happy.
 
 THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS. ! 9 
 
 The evening has passed like a moment. The old 
 woman told me the history of her life, sometimes smil- 
 ing, sometimes drying her eyes. Perrine sang an old 
 ballad with her fresh, young voice. Henry told us 
 what he knows of the great writers of the day, to whom 
 he has to carry their proofs. At last we were obliged to 
 separate, not without fresh thanks on the part of the 
 happy family. 
 
 I have come home slowly, ruminating with a full 
 heart, and pure enjoyment, on the simple events of my 
 evening. It has given me much comfort and much in- 
 struction. Now, no New-Year's Day will come amiss 
 to me ; I know that no one is so unhappy as to have 
 nothing to give and nothing to receive. 
 
 As I came in, I met my rich neighbour's new equi- 
 page. She, too, had just returned from her evening's 
 party ; and, as she sprang from the carriage-step with 
 feverish impatience, I heard her murmur At last ! 
 
 I, when I left Paulette's family, said So soon!
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE CARNIVAL. 
 
 February 2Oth. What a noise out of doors ! What is 
 the meaning- of these shouts and cries? Ah! I recol- 
 lect : this is the last day of the Carnival, and the maskers 
 are passing. 
 
 Christianity has not been able to abolish the noisy 
 bacchanalian festivals of the pagan times, but it has 
 changed the names. That which it has given to these 
 " days of liberty " announces the ending of the feasts, 
 and the month of fasting which should follow ; "carn-i- 
 val" means literally "down ivitk flesJi meat!" It is a 
 forty days' farewell to the " blessed pullets and fat 
 hams," so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel. Man 
 prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin 
 thoroughly before he begins to repent. 
 
 Why, in all ages and among every people, do we
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 21 
 
 meet with some one of these mad festivals? Must we 
 believe that it requires such an effort for men to be 
 reasonable, that the weaker ones have need of rests at in- 
 tervals? The monks of La Trappe, who are condemned 
 to silence by their rule, are allowed to speak once in a 
 month, and on this day they all talk at once from the 
 rising to the setting of the sun. 
 
 Perhaps it is the same in the world". As we are 
 obliged all the year to be decent, orderly, and reason- 
 able, we make up for such a long restraint during the 
 Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies 
 and wishes which have hitherto been crowded back 
 into a corner of our brain. For a moment the slaves 
 become the masters, as in the days of the Saturnalia, 
 and everything is given up to the " fools of the family." 
 
 The shouts in the Square redouble ; the troops of 
 masks increase on foot, in carriages, and on horseback. 
 It is now who can attract the most attention by making 
 a figure for a few hours, or by exciting curiosity or 
 envy ; to-morrow they will all return, dull and ex- 
 hausted, to the employments and troubles of yesterday. 
 
 Alas! thought I with vexation, each of us is like 
 these masqueraders ; our whole life is often but an un- 
 sightly Carnival ! And yet man has need of holidays, 
 to relax his mind, rest his body, and open his heart. 
 Can he not have them, then, with these coarse pleas- 
 ures? Economists have been long inquiring what is the 
 best disposal of the industry of the human race. Ah ! if 
 I could only discover the best disposal of its leisure ! It 
 is easy enough to find it work ; but who will find it re-
 
 22 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 laxation? Work supplies the daily bread; but it is 
 cheerfulness which gives it a relish. O philosophers! 
 go in quest of pleasure ! find us amusements without 
 brutality, enjoyments without selfishness ; in a word, in- 
 vent a Carnival, which will please everybody, and bring 
 shame to no one. 
 
 Three o'clock. I have just shut my window, and 
 stirred up my fire. As this is a holiday for everybody, 
 I will make it one for myself too. So I light the little 
 lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of 
 the coffee that my portress's son brought from the Le- 
 vant, and I look in my bookcase for one of my favourite 
 authors. 
 
 First, here is the amusing parson of Meudon ; but his 
 characters are too fond of talking slang : Voltaire ; but 
 he disheartens men by always bantering them : 
 Moliere ; but he hinders one's laughter by making one 
 think : Lesage ; let us stop at him. Being profound 
 rather than grave, he preaches virtue while ridiculing 
 vice ; if bitterness is sometimes to be found in his 
 writings, it is always in the garb of mirth : he sees the 
 miseries of the world without despising it, and knows 
 its cowardly tricks without hating it. 
 
 Let us call up all the heroes of his book. Gil Bias, 
 Fabrice, Sangrado, the Archbishop of Granada, the 
 Duke of Lerma, Aurora, Scipio ! Ye gay or graceful 
 figures, rise before my eyes, people my solitude ; bring 
 hither for my amusement the world-carnival, of which 
 you are the brilliant maskers ! 
 
 Unfortunately, at the very moment I made this
 
 THE CARNJl'AL. 23 
 
 invocation, I recollected I had a letter to write which 
 could not be put off. One of my attic neighbours 
 came yesterday to ask me to do it. He is a cheerful 
 old man, and has a passion for pictures and prints. 
 He comes home almost every day with a drawing or 
 painting probably of little value ; for I know he lives 
 penuriously, and even the letter that I am to write for 
 him shows his poverty. His only son, who was married 
 in England, is just dead, and his widow left without 
 any means, and with an old mother and a child had 
 written to beg for a home. JNI. Antoine asked me first 
 to translate the letter, and then to write a refusal. I had 
 promised that he should have this answer to-day : 
 before everything, let us fulfil our promises. 
 
 The sheet of " Bath " paper is before me, I have 
 dipped my pen into the ink, and I rub my forehead to 
 invite forth a sally of ideas, when I perceive that I 
 have not my dictionary. Now, a Parisian who would 
 speak English without a dictionary is like a child 
 without leading-strings ; the ground trembles under 
 him, and he stumbles at the first step. I run then to 
 the bookbinder's where I left my Johnson, and who 
 lives close by in the Square. 
 
 The door is half open ; I hear low groans ; I enter 
 without knocking, and I see the bookbinder by the 
 bedside of his fellow-lodger. This latter has a violent 
 fever and delirium. Pierre looks at him perplexed and 
 out of humour. I learn from him that his comrade 
 was not able to get up in the morning, and that since 
 then he has become worse every hour.
 
 24 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I ask if they have sent for a doctor. 
 
 " Oh yes, indeed ! " replied Pierre roughly ; " one 
 must have money in one's pocket for that, and this 
 fellow has only debts instead of savings." 
 
 " But you," said I, rather astonished ; "are you not 
 his friend ? " 
 
 " Friend ! " interrupted the bookbinder. " Yes, as 
 much as the shaft-horse is friend to the leader on 
 condition that each will take his share of the draught, 
 and eat his feed by himself." 
 
 " You do not intend, however, to leave him without 
 any help ? " 
 
 " Bah ! he may keep in his bed till to-morrow, as 
 I'm going to the ball." 
 
 " You mean to leave him alone ? " 
 
 " Well ! must I miss a party of pleasure at Court- 
 ville* because this fellow is light-headed?" asked 
 Pierre sharply. " I have promised to meet some friends 
 at old Desnoyer's. Those who are sick may take their 
 broth ; my physic is white wine." 
 
 So saying, he untied a bundle, out of which he took 
 the fancy costume of a waterman, and proceeded to 
 dress himself in it. 
 
 In vain I tried to awaken some fellow-feeling for the 
 unfortunate man who lay groaning there, close by him ; 
 being entirely taken up with the thoughts of his ex- 
 pected pleasure, Pierre would hardly so much as hear 
 me. At last his coarse selfishness provoked me. I 
 began reproaching instead of remonstrating with him, 
 
 * A Paris Vauxhall.
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 2 $ 
 
 and I declared him responsible for the consequences 
 which such a desertion must bring upon the sick 
 man. 
 
 At this the bookbinder, who was just going, stopped 
 with an oath, and stamped his foot. "Am I to spend 
 my Carnival in heating water for foot-baths, pray? " 
 
 " You must not leave your comrade to die without 
 help ! " I replied. 
 
 " Let him go to the hospital, then ! " 
 
 " How can he by himself? " 
 
 Pierre seemed to make up his mind. 
 
 " Well, I'm going to take him," resumed he ; " be- 
 sides, I shall get rid of him sooner. Come, get up, 
 comrade ! " He shook his comrade, who had not taken 
 off his clothes. I observed that he was too weak to 
 walk, but the bookbinder would not listen : he made 
 him get up, and half dragged, half supported him to 
 the lodge of the porter, who ran for a hackney car- 
 riage. I saw the sick man get into it, almost fainting, 
 with the impatient waterman ; and they both set off, 
 one perhaps to die, the other to dine at Courtville 
 gardens ! 
 
 Six o'clock. I have been to knock at my neighbour's 
 door, who opened it himself; and I have given him 
 his letter, finished at last, and directed to his son's 
 widow. M. Antoine thanked me gratefully, and made 
 me sit down. 
 
 It was the first time I had been into the attic of 
 the old amateur. Curtains stained with damp, and 
 hanging down in rags, a cold stove, a bed of straw,
 
 26 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 two broken chairs, composed all the furniture. At 
 the end of the room were a great number of prints 
 in a heap, and paintings without frames turned against 
 the wall. 
 
 At the moment I came in, the old man was making 
 his dinner on some hard crusts of bread, which he 
 was soaking in a glass of eau sucrte. He perceived 
 that my eyes fell upon his hermit fare, and he looked 
 a little ashamed. 
 
 " There is nothing to tempt you in my supper, neigh- 
 bour," said he with 
 a smile. 
 
 I replied that at 
 least I thought it a 
 very philosophical 
 one for the Carnival. 
 M. Antoine shook 
 his head, and went 
 on again with his 
 supper. 
 
 " Every one keeps 
 his holidays in his 
 own way," resumed 
 
 he, beginning again to dip a crust into his glass. " There 
 are several sorts of epicures, and all feasts are not meant 
 to regale the palate ; there are some also for the ears 
 and the eyes." 
 
 I looked involuntarily around me, as if to seek for 
 the invisible banquet which could make up to him 
 for such a supper.
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 27 
 
 Without doubt he understood me ; for he got up 
 slowly, and, with the magisterial air of a man confident 
 in what he is about to do, he rummaged behind several 
 picture frames, drew forth a painting, over which 
 he passed his hand, and silently placed it under the 
 light of the lamp. 
 
 It represented a fine-looking old man, seated at 
 table with his wife, his daughter, and his children, 
 and singing to the accompaniment of musicians who 
 appeared in the background. At first sight I recog- 
 nized the subject, which I had often admired at the 
 Louvre, and I declared it to be a splendid copy of 
 Jordaens. 
 
 " A copy ! " cried M. Antoine ; " say an original, 
 neighbour, and an original retouched by Rubens ! Look 
 closer at the head of the old man, the dress of the 
 young woman, and the accessories. One can count the 
 pencil strokes of the Hercules of painters. It is not 
 only a masterpiece, sir; it is a treasure a relic! The 
 picture at the Louvre may be a pearl, this is a dia- 
 mond ! " 
 
 And resting it against the stove, so as to place it 
 in the best light, he fell again to soaking his crusts, 
 without taking his eyes off the wonderful picture. 
 One would have said that the sight of it gave the 
 crusts an unexpected relish, for he chewed them slowly, 
 and emptied his glass by little sips. His shrivelled 
 features became smooth, his nostrils expanded ; it was 
 indeed, as he said himself, a feast of the eyes. 
 
 " You see that I also have my treat," resumed he,
 
 2g AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 nodding his head with an air of triumph. " Others 
 may Vun after dinners and balls ; as for me, this is the 
 pleasure I give myself for my Carnival." 
 
 " But if this painting is really so precious," replied I, 
 " it ought to be worth a high price." 
 
 " Eh ! eh ! " said M. Antoine, with an air of proud 
 indifference. " In good times, a good judge might 
 value it at somewhere about twenty thousand francs." 
 
 I started back. 
 
 " And you have bought it ? " cried I. 
 
 " For nothing," replied he, lowering his voice. 
 " These brokers are asses ; mine mistook this for a 
 student's copy ; he let me have it for fifty louis, ready 
 money ! This morning I took them to him, and now he 
 wishes to be off the bargain." 
 
 " This morning ! " repeated I, involuntarily casting 
 my eyes on the letter containing the refusal that M. 
 Antoine had made me write to his son's widow, and 
 which was still on the little table. 
 
 He took no notice of my exclamation, and went 
 on contemplating the work of Jordaens in a kind of 
 ecstasy. 
 
 " What a knowledge of chiaroscuro ! " murmured 
 he, biting his last crust in delight. " What relief ! what 
 fire ! Where can one find such transparency of color ! 
 such magical lights ! such force ! such nature ! " 
 
 As I was listening to him in silence, he mistook my 
 astonishment for admiration, and clapped me on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " You are dazzled," said he merrily ; " you did not
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 29 
 
 expect such a treasure ! What do you say to the bar- 
 gain I have made ? " 
 
 " Pardon me," replied I gravely ; " but I think you 
 might have done better." 
 
 M. Antoine raised his head. 
 
 " How ! " cried he ; " do you take me for a man 
 likely to be deceived about the merit or value of a 
 painting ? " A 
 
 " I neither doubt your taste nor your skill ; but I 
 can not help thinking that, for the price of this picture 
 of a family party, you might have had 
 
 " What then?" 
 
 "The family itself, sir." 
 
 The old amateur cast a look at me, not of anger, 
 but of contempt. In his eyes I had evidently just 
 proved myself a barbarian, incapable of understand- 
 ing the arts, and unworthy of enjoying them. He 
 got up without answering me, hastily took up the 
 Jordaens, and replaced it in its hiding-place behind 
 the prints. 
 
 It was a sort of dismissal ; I took leave of him, and 
 went away. 
 
 Seven o'clock. When I come in again, I find my 
 water boiling over my little lamp, and I busy myself 
 in grinding my Mocha, and setting out my coffee 
 things. 
 
 The getting coffee ready is the most delicate and 
 most attractive of domestic operations to one who lives 
 alone ; it is the grand work of a bachelor's house- 
 keeping.
 
 3Q AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Coffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between 
 bodily and spiritual nourishment. It acts agreeably, 
 and at the same time, upon the senses and the 
 thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delight- 
 ful activity to the wits ; it is a genius who lends wings 
 to our fancy, and transports it to the land of the 
 Arabian Nights. 
 
 When I am buried in my old easy-chair, my feet 
 on the fender before a blazing fire, my ear soothed by 
 the singing of the coffee-pot which seems to gossip with 
 my fire-irons, the sense of smell gently excited by the 
 aroma of the Arabian bean, and my eyes shaded by 
 my cap pulled down over them, it often seems as if 
 each cloud of the fragrant steam took a distinct form. 
 As in the mirages of the desert, in each as it rises, I 
 see some image of which my mind had been longing 
 for the reality. 
 
 At first the vapour increases, and its colour deepens. 
 I see a cottage on a hill-side : behind is a garden shut in 
 by a whitethorn hedge, and through the garden runs a 
 brook, on the banks of which I hear the bees hum- 
 ming. 
 
 Then the view opens still more. See those fields 
 planted with apple-trees, and in which I distinguish a 
 plough and horses waiting for their master ? Farther on, 
 in a part of the wood which rings with the sound of the 
 axe, I perceive the woodsman's hut, roofed with turf 
 and branches; and in the midst of all these rural pictures 
 I seem to see a figure of myself gliding about. It is my 
 ghost walking in my dream !
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 3! 
 
 The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, com- 
 pels me to break off my meditations, in order to fill 
 up the coffee-pot. I then remember that I have no 
 cream ; I take my tin can off the hook and -go down 
 to the milkwoman's. 
 
 Mother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Savoy, 
 which she left when quite young ; and, contrary to the 
 custom of the Savoyards, she has not gone back to it 
 again. She has neither husband nor child, notwith- 
 standing the title they give her ; but her kindness, 
 which never sleeps, makes her worthy of the name of 
 mother. 
 
 A brave creature ! Left by herself in the battle of 
 life, she makes good her humble place in it by work- 
 ing, singing, helping others, and leaving the rest to 
 God. 
 
 At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of 
 laughter. In one of the corners of the shop three chil- 
 dren are sitting on the ground. They wear the sooty 
 dress of Savoyard boys, and in their hands they hold 
 large slices of bread and cheese. The youngest is be- 
 smeared up to the eyes with his, and that is the reason 
 of their mirth. 
 
 Mother Denis points them out to me. 
 
 " Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy them- 
 selves ! " said she, putting her hand on the head of the 
 little glutton. 
 
 " He has had no breakfast," puts in one of the others 
 by way of excuse. 
 
 " Poor little thing," said the milkwoman ; " he is left
 
 32 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 alone in the streets of Paris, where he can find no other 
 father than the All-good God ! " 
 
 " And that is why you make yourself a mother to 
 them ? " I replied gently. 
 
 " What I do is little enough," said Mother Denis, 
 measuring out my milk ; " but every day I get some of 
 them together out of the street, that for once they may 
 have enough to eat. Dear children ! their mothers will 
 make up for it in heaven. Not to mention that they 
 recall my native mountains to me ; when they sing and 
 dance, I seem to see our old father again." 
 
 Here her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " So you are repaid by your recollections for the 
 good you do them ? " resumed I. 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! " said she, " and by their happiness too ! 
 The laughter of these little ones, sir, is like a bird's 
 song ; it makes you gay, and gives you heart to 
 live." 
 
 As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and 
 cheese, and added some apples and a handful of nuts to 
 them. 
 
 " Come, my little dears,' she cried, " put these into 
 your pockets against to-morrow." 
 
 Then, turning to me 
 
 " To-day I am ruining myself," added she ; " but we 
 must all have our Carnival." 
 
 I came away without saying a word : I was too much 
 affected. 
 
 At last I have discovered what true pleasure is. 
 After having seen the egotism of sensuality and of in-
 
 THE CARNIVAL. 
 
 33 
 
 tellect, I have found the happy self-sacrifice of goodness. 
 Pierre, M. Antoine, and Mother Denis had each kept 
 their Carnival ; but for the two first it was only a feast 
 for the senses or the mind, while for the third it was a 
 feast for the heart.
 
 WHAT WE MAY LEARN 
 
 BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW 
 
 March jd. A poet has said that life is the dream of 
 a shadow : he would better have compared it to a night 
 of fever ! What alternate fits of restlessness and sleep ! 
 what discomfort ! what sudden starts ! what ever-return- 
 ing thirst ! what a chaos of mournful and confused fan- 
 cies ! We can neither sleep nor wake ; we seek in vain 
 for repose, and we stop short on the brink of action. 
 Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation, 
 and the last third in repenting. 
 
 When I say Jiuman existence, I mean my own ! We 
 are so made that each of us regards himself as the mir- 
 ror of the community : what passes in our minds infalli- 
 bly seems to us a history of the universe. Every man is 
 like the drunkard, who reports an earthquake because 
 he feels himself staggering. 
 
 And why am I uncertain and restless I, a poor day-
 
 LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 
 
 35 
 
 labourer in the world who fill an obscure station in a 
 corner of it, and whose work it avails itself of with- 
 out heeding the workman ? I will tell you, my unseen 
 friend, for whom these lines are written ; my unknown 
 brother, on whom the solitary call in sorrow ; my im- 
 aginary confidant, to whom all monologues are ad- 
 dressed and who is but the shadow of our own con- 
 science. 
 
 A great event has happened in my life ! A cross- 
 road has suddenly opened in the middle of the monoto- 
 nous way along which I was travelling quietly and 
 without thinking of it. Two roads present themselves, 
 and I must choose between them. One is only the con- 
 tinuation of that I have followed till now ; the other is 
 wider, and exhibits wondrous prospects. On the first 
 there is nothing to fear, but also little to hope ; on the 
 other, great dangers and great fortune. In a word, the 
 question is, whether I shall give up the humble office in 
 which I thought to die, for one of those bold specula- 
 tions in which chance alone is banker ! Ever since yes- 
 terday I have consulted with myself ; I have compared 
 the two, and I remain undecided. 
 
 Where shall I get any light who will advise me ? 
 
 Sunday, qth. See the sun coming out from the thick 
 fogs of winter ; spring announces its approach ; a soft 
 breeze skims over the roofs, and my wallflower begins 
 to blow again. 
 
 We are near that sweet season of fresh green, of 
 which the poets of the sixteenth century sang with so 
 much feeling :
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Now the gladsome month of 
 
 May 
 
 All things newly doth array ; 
 Fairest lady, let me too 
 In thy love my life renew. 
 
 The chirping of the 
 sparrows calls me : 
 they claim the crumbs 
 I scatter to them every 
 morning. I open my 
 window, and the pros- 
 pect of roofs opens out 
 before me in all its 
 splendor. 
 
 He who has only lived on a first floor has no idea of 
 the picturesque variety of such a view. He has never 
 contemplated these tile-coloured heights which intersect 
 each other ; he has not followed with his eyes these gut- 
 ter-valleys, where the fresh verdure of the attic gardens 
 waves, the deep shadows which evening spreads over 
 the slated slopes, and the sparkling of windows which 
 the setting sun has kindled to a blaze of fire. He has 
 not studied the flora of these Alps of civilization, car- 
 peted by lichens and mosses ; he is not acquainted with 
 the thousand inhabitants which people them, from the 
 microscopic insect to the domestic cat that Reynard 
 of the roofs who is always on the prowl, or in ambush ; 
 he has not witnessed the thousand aspects of a clear or 
 a cloudy sky ; nor the thousand effects of light, which 
 make these upper regions a theatre with ever-changing 
 scenes ! How many limes have my days of leisure
 
 LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. ^ 
 
 passed away in contemplating this wonderful sight; in 
 discovering its darker or brighter episodes ; in seeking, 
 in short, in this unknown world for the impressions of 
 travel that wealthy tourists look for lower down ! 
 
 Nine o'clock. But why, then, have not my winged 
 neighbours picked up the crumbs I have scattered for 
 them before my window ? I see them fly away, come 
 back, perch upon the ledges of the windows, and chirp 
 at the sight of the feast they are usually so ready to de- 
 vour! It is not my presence that frightens them; I 
 have accustomed them to eat out of my hand. Then, 
 why is this fearful suspense? In vain I look arcund : 
 the roof is clear, the windows near are closed. I 
 crumble the bread that remains from my breakfast to 
 attract them by an ampler feast. Their chirpings in- 
 crease, they bend down their heads, the boldest ap- 
 proach upon the wing, but without daring to alight. 
 
 Come, come, my sparrows are the victims of one of 
 the foolish panics which make the funds fall at the 
 Bourse ! It is plain that birds are not more reasonable 
 than men ! 
 
 With this reflection I was about to shut my window, 
 when all of a sudden I perceived, in a spot of sunshine 
 on my right, the shadow of two pricked-up ears ; then 
 a paw advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat showed 
 itself at the corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow 
 was lying there in wait, hoping the crumbs would bring 
 him some game. 
 
 And I had accused my guests of cowardice ! I was 
 so sure that no danger could menace them ! I thought
 
 3 8 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I had looked well everywhere! I had only forgotten 
 the corner behind me ! 
 
 ( In life, as on the roofs, how many misfortunes come 
 
 \ 
 
 from having forgotten a single corner ! ) 
 
 Ten d clock. I can not leave my window ; the rain 
 and the cold have kept it shut so long, that I must re- 
 connoitre all the environs to be able to take possession 
 of them again. My eyes search in succession all the 
 points of the jumbled and confused prospect, passing 
 on or stopping according to what they light upon. 
 
 Ah ! see the windows upon which they formerly 
 loved to rest ; they are those of two unknown neigh- 
 bours, whose different habits they have long remarked. 
 
 One is a poor workwoman, who rises before sunrise, 
 and whose profile is shadowed upon her little muslin 
 window curtain far into the evening ; the other is a 
 young lady singer, whose vocal flourishes sometimes 
 reach my attic by snatches. When their windows are 
 open, that of the workwoman discovers a humble but 
 decent abode ; the other, an elegantly furnished room. 
 But to-day a crowd of tradespeople throng the latter : 
 they take down the silk hangings and carry off the 
 furniture, and I now remember that the young singer 
 passed under my window this morning with her veil 
 down, and walking with the hasty step of one who 
 suffers some inward trouble. Ah ! I guess it all. Her 
 means are exhausted in elegant fancies, or have been 
 taken away by some unexpected misfortune, and now she 
 has fallen from luxury to indigence. While the work- 
 woman manages not only to keep her little room, but
 
 LOOKING OUT OF IV IN DO IV. 39 
 
 also to furnish it with decent comfort by her steady 
 toil, that of the singer is become the property of brok- 
 ers. The one sparkled for a moment on the wave of 
 prosperity ; the other sails slowly but safely along the 
 coast of a humble and labourious industry. 
 
 Alas ! is there not here a lesson for us all ? Is it 
 really in hazardous experiments, at the end of which we 
 shall meet with wealth or ruin, that the wise man 
 should employ his years of strength and freedom ? 
 Ought he to consider life as a regular employment 
 which brings its daily wages, or as a game in which the 
 future is determined by a few throws ? Why seek the 
 risk of extreme chances ? For what end hasten to riches 
 by dangerous roads ? Is it really certain that happiness 
 is the prize of brilliant successes, rather than of a wisely 
 accepted poverty? Ah! if men but knew in what a 
 small dwelling joy can live, and how little it costs to 
 furnish it ! 
 
 Twelve o'clock. I have been walking up and down 
 my attic for a long time, with my arms folded and my 
 eyes on the ground ! My doubts increase, like shadows 
 encroaching more and more on some bright space ; my 
 fears multiply, and the uncertainty becomes every mo- 
 ment more painful to me ! It is necessary for me to de- 
 cide to-day, and before the evening ! *; I hold the dice 
 of my future fate in my hands, and I dare not throw 
 them.) 
 
 Three o clock. The sky has become cloudy, and a 
 cold wind begins to blow from the west ; all the win- 
 dows which were opened to the sunshine of a beautiful
 
 40 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 day are shut again. Only on the opposite side of the 
 street, the lodger on the last story has not yet left his 
 balcony. 
 
 One knows him to be a soldier by his regular walk, 
 his grey moustaches, and the ribbon which decorates his 
 buttonhole. Indeed, one might have guessed as much 
 from the care he takes of the little garden which is the 
 ornament of his balcony in mid-air ; for there are two 
 things especially loved by all old soldiers flowers and 
 children. They have been so long obliged to look upon 
 the earth as a field of battle, and so long cut off from 
 the peaceful pleasures of a quiet lot, that they seem to 
 begin life at an age when others end it. The tastes of 
 their early years, which were arrested by the 1 " stern du- 
 ties of war, suddenly break out again with their white 
 hairs, and are like the savings of youth which they 
 spend again in old age. Besides, they have been con- 
 demned to be destroyers for so long, that perhaps they 
 feel a secret pleasure in creating and seeing 1 -fife spring 
 up again : the beauty of weakness has a grace and an 
 attraction the more for those who have been the agents 
 of unbending force ; and the watching over the frail 
 germs of life has all the charms of novelty for these old 
 workmen of death. 
 
 Therefore the cold wind has not driven my neigh- 
 bour from his balcony. He is digging up the earth in 
 his green boxes, and carefully sowing in the seeds of 
 the scarlet nasturtium, convolvulus, and sweet pea. 
 Henceforth he will come every day to watch for their 
 first sprouting, to protect the young shoots from weeds
 
 LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 4 ! 
 
 or insects, to arrange the strings for the tendrils to climb 
 by, and carefully to regulate their supply of water and 
 heat ! 
 
 How much labour to bring in the desired harvest ! 
 For that, how many times shall I see him brave cold or 
 heat, wind or sun, as he does to-day ! But then, in the 
 hot summer days, when the blinding dust whirls in 
 clouds through our streets, when the eye, dazzled by 
 the glare of white stucco, knows not where to rest, and 
 the glowing roofs reflect their heat upon us to burning, 
 the old soldier will sit in his arbour and perceive noth- 
 ing but green leaves and flowers around him, and the 
 breeze will come cool and fresh to him through these 
 perfumed shades. His assiduous care will be rewarded 
 at last. 
 
 (We must sow the seeds, and tend the growth, if we 
 would enjoy the flower. 
 
 Four o clock. The clouds which have been gathering 
 in the horizon for a long time are become darker ; it 
 thunders loudly, and the rain pours down ! Those who 
 are caught in it fly in every direction, some laughing 
 and some crying. 
 
 I always find particular amusement in these helter- 
 skelters, caused by a sudden storm. It seems as if each 
 one, when thus taken by surprise, loses the factitious 
 character the world or habit has given him, and ap- 
 pears in his true colours. 
 
 See, for example, that big man with deliberate step, 
 who suddenly forgets his indifference made to order, 
 and runs like a school-boy ! He is a thrifty city gentle- 
 
 STATE rt u :?*:.'. i. 
 
 IX3S AHtitajsS, -:- UAL. 
 
 >n -:a
 
 42 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 man, who, with all his fashionable airs, is afraid to spoil 
 his hat. 
 
 That pretty lady yonder, on the contrary, whose 
 looks are so modest, and whose dress is so elaborate, 
 slackens her pace with the increasing storm. She seems 
 to find pleasure in braving it, and does not think of her 
 velvet cloak spotted by the hail ! She is evidently a 
 lioness in sheep's clothing. 
 
 Here, a young man who was passing stops to catch 
 some of the hailstones in his hand, and examines them. 
 By his quick and business-like walk just now, you would 
 have taken him for a tax-gatherer on his rounds, when 
 he is a young philosopher, studying the effects of elec- 
 tricity. And those school-boys who leave their ranks 
 to run after the sudden gusts of a March whirlwind ; 
 those girls, just now so demure, and who now fly with 
 bursts of laughter ; those national guards, who quit the 
 martial attitude of their days of duty, to take refuge 
 under a porch ! The storm has caused all these trans- 
 formations. 
 
 See, it increases ! The hardiest are obliged to seek 
 shelter. I see every one rushing towards the shop in 
 front of my window, which a bill announces is to let. It 
 is for the fourth time within a few months. A year ago 
 all the skill of the joiner and the art of the painter were 
 employed in beautifying it, but their works are already 
 destroyed by the leaving of so many tenants ; the cor- 
 nices of the front are disfigured by mud ; the arabesques 
 on the doorway are spoiled by bills posted upon them 
 to announce the sale of the effects. The splendid shop
 
 LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 43 
 
 has lost some of its embellishments with each change of 
 
 o 
 
 the tenant. See it now empty, and left open to the 
 passers-by. How much does its fate resemble that of so 
 many who, like it, only change their occupation to 
 hasten the faster to ruin ! 
 
 I am struck by this last reflection : since the morn- 
 ing everything seems to speak to me, and with the same 
 warning tone. Everything says : " Take care ! be con- 
 tent with your happy, though humble, lot ; happiness 
 can only be retained by constancy ; do not forsake your 
 old patrons for the protection of those who are un- 
 known ! " 
 
 Are they the outward objects which speak thus, or 
 does the warning come from within ? Is it not I my- 
 self who give this language to all that surrounds me? 
 The world is but an instrument, to which we give 
 sound at will. But what does it signify if it teaches 
 us wisdom ? The low voice which speaks in our breasts 
 is always a friendly voice, for it tells us what we are 
 that is to say, what is our capability. Bad conduct 
 results, for the most part, from mistaking our calling. 
 There are so many fools and knaves, because there are 
 so few men who know themselves. (The question is 
 not to discover what will suit us, but for what we are 
 suited r\ 
 
 What should I do in the midst of these experienced 
 financial speculators ? I am a poor sparrow, born 
 among the housetops, and should always fear the enemy 
 crouching in the dark corner ; I am a prudent work- 
 man, and should think of the business of my neighbours
 
 44 
 
 A A 7 ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 who so suddenly disappeared ; I am a timid observer, 
 and should call to mind the flowers so slowly raised by 
 the old soldier, or the shop brought to ruin by con- 
 stant change of masters. Away from me, ye banquets, 
 over which hangs the sword of Damocles ! I am a 
 country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow tree, 
 and I ask nothing besides except security. 
 
 And why this insatiable craving for riches ? Does a 
 man drink more when he drinks from a large glass ? 
 From whence comes that universal dread of mediocrity, 
 the fruitful mother of peace and liberty ? Ah ! there 
 is the evil which, above every other, it should be the 
 aim of both public and private education to antici- 
 pate ! If that were got rid of, what treasons would be 
 spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess 
 and crime would be forever broken ! i We award the 
 palm to charity, and to self-sacrifice ; but, above all, let 
 us award it to moderation, for it is the great social vir- 
 tue. / Even when it does not create the others, it stands 
 instead of them. 
 
 Six o clock. I have written a letter of thanks to the 
 promoters of the new speculation, and have declined 
 their offer ! This decision has restored my peace of 
 mind. I stopped singing, like the cobbler, as long as 
 I entertained the hope of riches : it is gone, and hap- 
 piness is come back. 
 
 (O beloved and gentle Poverty ! pardon me for having 
 for a moment wished to fly from thee, as I would from 
 Want. Stay here forever with thy charming sisters, Pity, 
 Patience, Sobriety, and Solitude ; be ye my queens and
 
 LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 
 
 45 
 
 my instructors ; teach me the stern duties of life ; re- 
 move far from my abode the weakness of heart, and 
 giddiness of head, which follow prosperity. Holy 
 Poverty ! teach me to endure without complaining, to 
 impart without grudging, to seek the end of life higher 
 than in pleasure, farther off than in power. Thou 
 givest the body strength, thou makest the mind more 
 firm ; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the rich 
 attach themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which 
 death may cut the cable without awakening all our 
 fears. Continue to sustain me, O thou whom Christ 
 hath called Blessed ! )
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 April ytJi. The fine evenings are 
 come back ; the trees begin to put forth 
 their shoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs per- 
 fume the baskets of the flower-girls ; all the world have 
 begun their walks again on the quays and boulevards. 
 After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to breathe 
 the evening air. 
 
 It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. 
 During the day the plaster fronts of the houses weary 
 the eye by their monotonous whiteness ; heavily laden 
 carts make the street shake under their huge wheels ; 
 the eager crowd, taken up by the one fear of losing a 
 moment from business, cross and jostle one another ; 
 the aspect of the city altogether has something harsh, 
 restless, and flurried about it. But, as soon as the stars 
 appear, everything is changed ; the glare of the white 
 houses is quenched in the gathering shades ; you hear 
 no more any rolling but that of the carriages on their 
 way to some party of pleasure ; you see only the
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 47 
 
 lounger or the light-hearted passing by ; work has 
 given place to leisure. Now each one may breathe 
 after the fierce race through the business of the day, and 
 whatever strength remains to him he gives to pleasure ! 
 See the ball-rooms lighted up, the theatres open, the 
 eating-shops, along the walks set out with dainties, and 
 the twinkling lanterns of the newspaper criers. De- 
 cidedly Paris has laid aside the pen, the ruler, and the 
 apron ; after the day spent in work, it must have the 
 evening for enjoyment ; like the masters of Thebes, it 
 has put off all serious matter till to-morrow. 
 
 I love to take part in this happy hour ; not to mix in 
 the general gaiety, but to contemplate it. If the enjoy- 
 ments of others embitter jealous minds, they strengthen 
 the humble spirit ; they are the beams of sunshine, which 
 open the two beautiful flowers called trust and liopc. 
 
 Although alone in the midst of the smiling multi- 
 tude, I do not feel myself isolated from it, for its gai- 
 ety is reflected upon me : it is my own kind, my own 
 family, who are enjoying life, and I take a brother's 
 share in their happiness. We are all fellow-soldiers in 
 this earthly battle, and what does it matter on whom the 
 honours of the victory fall ? If Fortune passes by with- 
 out seeing us, and pours her favours on others, let us 
 console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by say- 
 ing, " Those, too, are Alexanders." 
 
 While making these reflections, I was going on as 
 chance took me. I crossed from one pavement to an- 
 other, I retraced my steps, I stopped before the shops 
 or to read the handbills. How many things there are
 
 48 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 to learn in the streets of Paris ! What a museum it is ! 
 Unknown fruits, foreign arms, furniture of old times or 
 other lands, animals of all climates, statues of great 
 men, costumes of distant nations ! It is the world seen 
 in samples !, 
 
 Let us then look at this people, whose knowledge is 
 gained from the shop windows and the tradesman's dis- 
 play *~J goods. Nothing has been taught them, but they 
 have a rude notion of everything. They have seen the 
 ananas at Chevet's, a palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes, 
 sugar-canes selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, 
 exhibited in the Valentine Hall, have taught them to 
 mimic the dance of the bison, and to smoke the calumet 
 of Peace ; they have seen Carter's lions fed ; they know 
 the principal national costumes contained in Babin's 
 collection ; Goupil's display of prints has placed the 
 tiger-hunts of Africa and the sittings of the English Par- 
 liament before their eyes ; they have become acquainted 
 with Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kos- 
 suth, at the office-door of the " Illustrated News." We 
 can certainly instruct them, but not astonish them ; for 
 nothing is completely new to them. You may take the 
 Paris ragamuffin through the five quarters of the world, 
 and at every wonder with which you think to surprise 
 him, he will settle the matter with that favourite and con- 
 clusive answer of his class / know. 
 
 But this variety of exhibitions, which makes Paris 
 the fair of the world, does not merely offer a means of 
 instruction to him who walks through it ; it is a con- 
 tinual spur for rousing the imagination, a first step of
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 49 
 
 the ladder always set up before us in a vision. When 
 we see them, how many voyages do we take in imagina- 
 tion, what adventures do we dream of, what pictures 
 do we sketch ! I never look at that shop near the Chi- 
 nese baths, with its tapestry hangings of Florida jessa- 
 mine, and filled with magnolias, without seeing the 
 forest glades of the New World, described by the 
 author of "Atala," opening themselves out befor'-*ne. 
 
 Then, when this study of things and this discourse 
 of reason begin to tire you, look around you ! What 
 contrasts of figures and faces you see in the crowd ! 
 What a vast field for the exercise of meditation ! A 
 half-seen glance, or a few words caught as the speaker 
 passes by, open a thousand vistas to your imagination. 
 You wish to comprehend what these imperfect disclos- 
 ures mean, and, as the antiquary endeavours to de- 
 cipher the mutilated inscription on some old monument, 
 you build up a history on a gesture or on a word ! 
 These are the stirring sports of the mind, which finds 
 in fiction a relief from the wearisome dulness of the 
 actual. 
 
 Alas ! as I was just now passing by the carriage en- 
 trance of a great house, I noticed a sad subject for one 
 of these histories. A man was sitting in the darkest cor- 
 ner with his head bare, and holding out his hat for the 
 charity of those who passed. His threadbare coat had 
 that look of neatness which marks that destitution has 
 been met by a long struggle. He had carefully but- 
 toned it up to hide the want of a shirt. His face was 
 half hid under his long grey hair, and his eyes closed,
 
 5o AA T A TTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 as if he wished to escape the sight of his own humili- 
 ation, and he remained mute and motionless. Those 
 
 who passed him took 
 Pt^ no notice of the beggar, 
 
 who sat in silence and 
 f^K^S?' 
 
 darkness ! They had 
 
 been so lucky as to 
 escape complaints and 
 importunities, and were 
 glad to turn away their 
 eyes too. 
 
 All at once the 
 great gate turned on 
 its hinges ; and a very 
 low carriage, lighted 
 
 with silver lamps, and drawn by two black horses, 
 came slowly out, and took the road toward the Fau- 
 bourg St. Germain. I could just distinguish, within, 
 the sparkling diamonds and the flowers of a ball-dress ; 
 the glare of the lamps passed like a bloody streak over 
 the pale face of the beggar, and showed his look as his 
 eyes opened and followed the rich man's equipage until 
 it disappeared in the night. 
 
 I dropped a small piece of money into the hat he 
 was holding out, and passed on quickly. 
 
 I had just fallen unexpectedly upon the two saddest 
 
 secrets of the disease which troubles the age we live 
 
 in : the envious hatred of him who suffers want, and 
 
 the selfish forgetfulness of him who lives in affluence. 
 
 All the enjoyment of my walk was gone ; I left off
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. $ r 
 
 looking about me, and retired into my own heart. The 
 animated and moving sight in the streets gave place to 
 inward meditation upon all the painful problems which 
 have been written for the last four thousand years at the 
 bottom of each human struggle, but which are pro- 
 pounded more clearly than ever in our days. 
 
 I pondered on the uselessness of so many contests,- 
 in which defeat and victory only displace each other by 
 turns, and on the mistaken zealots who have repeated 
 from generation to generation the bloody history of 
 Cain and Abel ; and, saddened with these mournful 
 reflections, I walked on as chance took me, until the 
 silence all around insensibly drew me out from my own 
 thoughts. 
 
 I had reached one of the remote streets, in which 
 those who would live in comfort and without ostenta- 
 tion, and who love serious reflection, delight to find a 
 home. There were no shops along the dimly lit pave- 
 ment ; one heard no sounds but of the distant carriages, 
 and of the steps of some of the inhabitants returning 
 quietly home. 
 
 I instantly recognized the street, though I had only 
 been there once before. 
 
 That was two years ago. I was walking at the time 
 by the side of the Seine, to which the lights on the 
 quays and bridges gave the aspect of a lake surrounded 
 by a garland of stars ; and I had reached the Louvre, 
 when I was stopped by a crowd collected near the para- 
 pet : they had gathered round a child of about six, who 
 was crying, and I asked the cause of his tears.
 
 52 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 " It seems that he was sent to walk in the Tuile- 
 ries," said a mason, who was returning from his work 
 with his trowel in his hand ; " the servant who took 
 care of him met with some friends there, and told the 
 child to wait for him while he went to get a drink ; but 
 I suppose the drink made him more thirsty, for he 
 has not come back, and the child can not find his way 
 home." 
 
 " Why do they not ask him his name, and where he 
 lives? " 
 
 " They have been doing it for the last hour ; but all 
 he can say is, that he is called Charles, and that his 
 father is M. Duval there are twelve hundred Duvals 
 in Paris." 
 
 " Then he does not know in what part of the town he 
 lives? " 
 
 " I should think not, indeed ! Don't you see that he 
 is a gentleman's child ? He has never gone out except 
 in a carriage or with a servant ; he does not know what 
 to do by himself." 
 
 Here the mason was interrupted by some of the 
 voices rising above the others. 
 
 " We can not leave him in the street," said some. 
 
 " The child-stealers would carry him off," continued 
 others. 
 
 " We must take him to the overseer." 
 
 " Qr to the police-office." 
 
 " That's the thing. Come, little one ! " 
 
 But the child, frightened by these suggestions of 
 danger, and at the names of police and overseer, cried
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 53 
 
 louder, and drew back toward the parapet. In vain 
 they tried to persuade him ; his fears made him resist 
 the more, and the most eager began to get weary, 
 when the voice of a little boy was heard through the 
 confusion. 
 
 " I know him well I do," said he, looking at the lost 
 child ; " he belongs to our part of the town." 
 
 "What part is it?" 
 
 " Yonder, on the other side of the Boulevards Rue 
 des Magasins." 
 
 " And you have seen him before ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! he belongs to the great house at the 
 end of the street, where there is an iron gate with gilt 
 points." 
 
 The child quickly raised his head, and stopped cry- 
 ing. The little boy answered all the questions that 
 were put to him, and gave such details as left no room 
 for doubt. The other child understood him, for he 
 went up to him as if to put himself under his protec- 
 tion. 
 
 "Then you can take him to his parents?" asked the 
 mason, who had listened with real interest to the little 
 boy's account. 
 
 " I don't care if I do," replied he; "its the way I'm 
 going." 
 
 " Then you will take charge of him ? " 
 
 "He has* only to come with me." 
 
 And, taking up the basket he had put down on 
 the pavement, he set off toward the postern gate of the 
 Louvre.
 
 54 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 The lost child followed him. 
 
 " I hope he will take him right," said I, when I saw 
 them go away. 
 
 " Never fear," replied the mason ; " the little one in 
 the blouse is the same age as the other ; but, as the say- 
 ing is, ' he knows black from white '; poverty, you see, 
 is a famous school-mistress ! " 
 
 The crowd dispersed. For my part, I went toward 
 the Louvre : the thought came into my head to follow 
 the two children, so as to guard against any mistake. 
 
 I was not long in overtaking them ; they were walk- 
 ing side by side, talking, and already quite familiar with 
 one another. The contrast in their dress then struck 
 me. Little Duval wore one of those fanciful children's 
 dresses which are expensive as well as in good taste ; 
 his coat was skillfully fitted to his figure, his trousers 
 came down in plaits from his waist to his boots of pol- 
 ished leather with mother-of-pearl buttons, and his ring- 
 lets were half hid by a velvet cap. The appearance of 
 his guide, on the contrary, was that of the class who 
 dwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who there 
 maintain their ground with no surrender. His old 
 blouse, patched with pieces of different shades, indicated 
 the perseverance of an industrious mother struggling 
 against the wear and tear of time ; his trousers were be- 
 come too short, and showed his stockings darned over 
 and over again ; and it was evident that his shoes were 
 not made for him. 
 
 The countenances of the two children were not less 
 different than their dresses. That of the first was deli-
 
 The contrast in their dress struck me.
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 55 
 
 cate and refined ; his clear blue eye, his fair skin, and 
 his smiling mouth, gave him a charming look of inno- 
 cence and happiness. The features of the other, on the 
 contrary, had something rough in them ; his eye was 
 quick and lively, his complexion dark, his smile less 
 merry than shrewd ; all showed a mind sharpened by 
 too early experience ; he boldly walked through the 
 middle of the streets thronged by carriages, and fol- 
 lowed their countless turnings without hesitation. 
 
 I found, on asking him, that every day he carried 
 dinner to his father, who was then working on the left 
 bank of the Seine ; and this responsible duty had made 
 him careful and prudent. He had learned those hard 
 but forcible lessons of necessity which nothing can 
 equal or supply the place of. Unfortunately the wants 
 of his poor family had kept him from school, and he 
 seemed to feel the loss ; for he often stopped before the 
 print-shops and asked his companion to read him the 
 names of the engravings. In this way we reached the 
 Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which the little wanderer 
 seemed to know again : notwithstanding his fatigue, he 
 hurried on ; he was agitated by mixed feelings ; at the 
 sight of his house he uttered a cry, and ran toward the 
 iron gate with the gilt points ; a lady who was standing 
 at the entrance received him in her arms, and from the 
 exclamations of joy, and the sound of kisses, I soon per- 
 ceived she was his mother. 
 
 Not seeing either the servant or child return, she 
 had sent in search of them in every direction, and was 
 waiting for them in intense anxiety.
 
 56 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I explained to her in a few words what had hap- 
 pened. She thanked me warmly, and looked round for 
 the little boy who had recognised and brought back 
 her son ; but while we were talking he had disappeared. 
 
 It was for the first time since then that I had come 
 into this part of Paris. Did the mother continue grate- 
 ful? Had the children met again, and had the happy 
 chance of their first meeting lowered between them that 
 barrier which may mark the different ranks of men, but 
 should not divide them? 
 
 While putting these questions to myself, I slackened 
 my pace, and fixed my eyes on the great gate, which I 
 just perceived. All at once I saw it open, and two chil- 
 dren appeared at the entrance. Although much grown, 
 I recognised them at first sight ; they were the child 
 who was found near the parapet of the Louvre, and his 
 young guide. But the dress of the latter was greatly 
 changed : his blouse of grey cloth was neat, and even 
 spruce, and was fastened round the waist by a polished 
 leather belt ; he wore strong shoes, but made to his feet, 
 and had on a new cloth cap. 
 
 Just at the moment I saw him he held in his two 
 hands an enormous bunch of lilacs, to which his com- 
 panion was trying to add narcissuses and primroses ; 
 the two children laughed, and parted with a friendly 
 good-bye. M. Duval's son did not go in till he had seen 
 the other turn the corner of the street. 
 
 Then I accosted the latter, and reminded him of our 
 former meeting ; he looked at me for a moment, and 
 then seemed to recollect me.
 
 LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 57 
 
 " Forgive me if I do not make you a bow," said he 
 merrily, " but I want both my hands for the nosegay M. 
 Charles has given me." 
 
 " You are, then, become great friends?" said I. 
 
 " Oh ! I should think so," said the child ; "and now 
 my father is rich too ! " 
 
 " How's that ! " 
 
 " M. Duval lent him a little money ; he has taken a 
 shop, where he works on his own account; and, as for 
 me, I go to school." 
 
 " Yes," replied I, remarking for the first time the 
 cross which decorated his little coat ; " and I see that 
 you are a head-boy ! " 
 
 " M. Charles helps me to learn, and so I am come to 
 be the first in the class." 
 
 " Are you now going to your lessons? " 
 
 " Yes, and he has given me some lilacs ; for he has a 
 garden where we play together, and where my mother 
 can always have flowers." 
 
 " Then it is the same as if it were partly your own." 
 
 " So it is ! Ah ! they are good neighbours indeed ! 
 But here I am ; good-bye, sir." 
 
 He nodded to me with a smile, and disappeared. 
 
 I went on with my walk, still pensive, but with a 
 feeling of relief. If I had elsewhere witnessed the pain- 
 ful contrast between affluence and want, here I had 
 found the true union of riches and poverty. Hearty 
 good-will had smoothed down the more rugged in- 
 equalities on both sides, and had opened a road of true 
 neighbourhood and fellowship between the humble
 
 58 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 workshop and the stately mansion. Instead of heark- 
 ening to the voice of interest, they had both listened to 
 that of self-sacrifice, and there was no place left for con- 
 tempt or envy. Thus, instead of the beggar in rags, 
 that I had seen at the other door cursing the rich man, 
 I had found here the happy child of the labourer loaded 
 with flowers and blessing him ! The problem, so diffi- 
 cult and so dangerous to examine into, with no regard 
 but for the rights of it, I had just seen solved by love.
 
 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 
 1 
 
 Sunday, May 2jt/i. Capital cities 
 have one thing peculiar to them : their 
 days of rest seem to be the signal for 
 a general dispersion and flight. Like birds that are 
 just restored to liberty, the people come out of their 
 stone cages, and joyfully fly toward the country. It is 
 who shall find a green hillock for a seat, or the shade 
 of a wood for a shelter ; they gather May-flowers, they 
 run about the fields ; the town is forgotten until the 
 evening, when they return with sprigs of blooming 
 hawthorn in their hats, and their hearts gladdened by 
 pleasant thoughts and recollections of the past day ; 
 the next day they return again to their harness, and to 
 work. 
 
 These rural adventurers are most remarkable at 
 Paris. When the fine weather comes, clerks, shop- 
 keepers, and workingmen look forward impatiently for 
 5
 
 6O AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 the Sunday as the day for trying a few hours of this pas- 
 toral life ; they walk through six miles of grocers' shops 
 and public houses in the faubourgs, in the sole hope of 
 finding a real turnip-field. The father of a family be- 
 gins the practical education of his son by showing him 
 wheat which has not taken the form of a loaf, and cabbage 
 " in its wild state." Heaven only knows the encounters, 
 the discoveries, the adventures that are met with ! 
 What Parisian has not had his Odyssey in an excursion 
 through the suburbs, and would not be able to write a 
 companion to the famous " Travels by Land and by 
 Sea from Paris to St. Cloud " ? 
 
 We do not now speak of that floating population 
 from all parts, for whom our French Babylon is the 
 caravansary of Europe : a phalanx of thinkers, artists, 
 men of business, and travellers, who, like Homer's hero, 
 have arrived in their intellectual country after having 
 seen " many peoples and cities " ; but of the settled 
 Parisian, who keeps his appointed place, and lives on 
 his own floor like the oyster on his rock, a curious 
 vestige of the credulity, the slowness, and the simplicity 
 of bygone ages. 
 
 For one of the singularities of Paris is, that it unites 
 twenty populations completely different in character 
 and manners. By the side of the gypsies of commerce 
 and of art, who wander through all the several stages 
 of fortune or fancy, live a quiet race of people with an 
 independence, or with regular work, whose existence 
 resembles the dial of a clock, on which the same hand 
 points by turns to the same hours. If no other city
 
 COMPENSATION. 6 t 
 
 can show more brilliant and more stirring forms of life, 
 no other contains more obscure and more tranquil ones. 
 Great cities are like the sea : storms only agitate the 
 surface ; if you go to the bottom, you find a region 
 inaccessible to the tumult and the noise. 
 
 For my part, I have settled on the verge of this 
 region, but do not actually live in it. I am removed 
 from the turmoil of the world, and live in the shelter 
 of solitude, but without being able to disconnect my 
 thoughts from the struggle going on. I follow at a 
 distance all its events of happiness or grief ; I join the 
 feasts and the funerals ; for how can he who looks on, 
 and knows what passes, do other than take part ? Igno- 
 rance alone can keep us strangers to the life around us : 
 selfishness itself will not suffice for that. 
 
 These reflections I made to myself in my attic, in the 
 intervals of the various " household works " to which a 
 bachelor is forced when he has no other servant than 
 his own ready will. While I was pursuing my deduc- 
 tions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and 
 tied my cravat: I had at last arrived at the important 
 moment when we pronounce complacently that all is 
 finished, and that well. 
 
 A grand resolve had just decided me to depart from 
 my usual habits. The evening before, I had seen by 
 the advertisements that the next day was a holiday at 
 Sevres, and that the china manufactory would be open 
 to the public. I was tempted by the beauty of the 
 morning, and suddenly decided to go there. 
 
 On mv arrival at the station on the left bank I
 
 62 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 noticed the crowd hurrying on in the fear of being late. 
 Railroads, besides many other advantages, will have 
 that of teaching the French punctuality. They will 
 submit to the clock when they are convinced that it is 
 their master; they will learn to wait when they find 
 they will not be waited for. Social virtues are, in a 
 great degree, good habits. How many great qualities 
 are grafted into nations by their geographical position, 
 by political necessity, and by institutions ! Avarice was 
 destroyed for a time among the Lacedaemonians by the 
 creation of an iron coinage, too heavy and too bulky to 
 be conveniently hoarded. 
 
 I found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged 
 sisters belonging to the domestic and retired class of 
 Parisians I have spoken of above. A few civilities were 
 sufficient to gain me their confidence, and after some 
 minutes I was acquainted with their whole history. 
 
 They were two poor women, left orphans at fifteen, 
 and had lived ever since, as those who work for a live- 
 lihood must live, by economy and privation. For the 
 last twenty or thirty years they had worked in jewelry 
 in the same house ; they had seen ten masters succeed 
 one another, and make their fortunes in it, without any 
 change in their own lot. They had always lived in the 
 same room, at the end of one of the passages in the 
 Rue St. Denis, where the air and the sun are unknown. 
 They began their work before daylight, went on with it 
 till after nightfall, and saw year succeed to year without 
 their lives being marked by any other events than the 
 Sunday service, a walk, or an illness.
 
 COM PEN SA TION. 63 
 
 The younger of these worthy workwomen was forty, 
 and obeyed her sister as she did when a child. The 
 elder looked after her, took care of her, and scolded her 
 with a mother's tenderness. At first it was amusing; 
 afterwards one could not help seeing something affecting 
 in these two grey-haired children, one unable to leave off 
 the habit of obeying, the other that of protecting. 
 
 And it was not in that alone that my two compan- 
 ions seemed younger than their years ; they knew so lit- 
 tle that their wonder never ceased. We had hardly 
 arrived at Clamart before they involuntarily exclaimed, 
 like the king in the children's game, that they did not 
 think the world was so great ! 
 
 It was the first time they had trusted themselves on 
 a railroad, and it was amusing to see their sudden 
 shocks, their alarms, and their courageous determina- 
 tions : everything was a marvel to them ! They had re- 
 mains of youth within them, which made them sensible 
 to things which usually only strike us in childhood. 
 Poor creatures ! they had still the feelings of another 
 age, though they had lost its charms. 
 
 But was there not something holy in this simplicity, 
 which had been preserved to them by abstinence from 
 all the joys of life? Ah ! accursed be he who first had 
 the bad couragre to attach ridicule to that name of Old 
 
 O 
 
 Maid, which recalls so many images of grievous decep- 
 tion, of dreariness, and of abandonment ! Accursed be 
 he who can find a subject for sarcasm in involuntary mis- 
 fortune, and \vho can crown greyjiairs with thorns ! 
 The two sisters were called Frances and Madeleine.
 
 64 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 This day's journey was a feat of courage without ex- 
 ample in their lives. The fever of the times had infect- 
 ed them unawares. Yesterday Madeleine had suddenly 
 proposed the idea of the expedition, and Frances had 
 accepted it immediately. Perhaps it would have been 
 better not to have yielded to the temptation offered by 
 her young sister ; but " we have our follies at all ages," 
 as the prudent Frances philosophically remarked. As 
 for Madeleine, there are no regrets or doubts for her ; 
 she is the life-guardsman of the establishment. 
 
 " We really must amuse ourselves," said she ; " we 
 do but live once.' 
 
 And the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. 
 It was evident that the fever of independence was at 
 its crisis in both of them. 
 
 And in truth it would have been a great pity if any 
 scruple had interfered with their happiness, it was so 
 frank and genial ! The sight of the trees, which seemed 
 to fly on both sides of the road, caused them unceas- 
 ing admiration. The meeting a train passing in the 
 contrary direction, with the noise and rapidity of a 
 thunderbolt, made them shut their eyes and utter a 
 cry ; but it had already disappeared ! They look round, 
 take courage again, and express themselves full of as- 
 tonishment at the marvel. 
 
 Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth the ex- 
 pense of the journey, and Frances would have agreed 
 with her if she had not recollected, with some little 
 alarm, the deficit which such an expense must make in 
 their budget. The three francs spent upon this single
 
 COMPENSA TION. 65 
 
 expedition were the savings of a whole week of work. 
 Thus the joy of the elder of the two sisters was mixed 
 with remorse ; the prodigal child now and then turned 
 back its eyes toward the back street of St. Denis. 
 
 But the motion and the succession of objects dis- 
 tract her. See the bridge of the Val surrounded by its 
 lovely landscape : on the right, Paris with its grand 
 monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle in 
 the sun ; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, 
 its vines, and its royal castle ! The two workwomen 
 look from one window to the other with exclamations of 
 delight. One fellow passenger laughs at their childish 
 wonder ; but to myself it is very touching, for I see in 
 it the sign of a long and monotonous seclusion : they are 
 the prisoners of work, who have recovered liberty and 
 fresh air for a few hours. 
 
 At last the train stops, and we get out. I show the 
 two sisters the path that leads to Sevres between the 
 railway and the gardens, and they go on before, while 
 I inquire about the time of returning. 
 
 I soon join them again at the next station, where 
 they have stopped at the little garden belonging to the 
 gate-keeper ; both are already in deep conversation 
 with him while he digs his garden borders, and marks 
 out the places for flower-seeds. He informs them that 
 it is the time for hoeing out weeds, for making grafts 
 and layers, for sowing annuals, and for destroying the 
 insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill of 
 her window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of 
 air and sun, she has never been able to make anything
 
 66 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 grow but mustard and cress ; but she persuades herself 
 that, thanks to this information, all other plants may 
 henceforth thrive in them. At last the gate-keeper, 
 who is sowing a border with mignonette, gives her the 
 rest of the seeds which he does not want, and the old 
 maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over again 
 the dream of Perette and her can of milk, with these 
 flowers of her imagination. 
 
 On reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair 
 was going on, I lost sight of the two sisters. I went 
 alone among the sights : there were lotteries going on, 
 mountebank shows, places for eating and drinking, and 
 for shooting with the cross-bow. I have always been 
 struck by the spirit of these out-of-door festivities. In 
 drawing-room entertainments people are cold, grave, 
 often listless, and most of those who go there are brought 
 together by habit or the obligations of society ; in the 
 country assemblies, on the contrary, you only find those 
 who are attracted by the hope of enjoyment. There, it 
 is a forced conscription ; here, they are volunteers for 
 gaiety ? Then, how easily they are pleased ! How far 
 this crowd of people is yet from knowing that to be 
 pleased with nothing, and to look down on everything, 
 is the height of fashion and good taste ! Doubtless 
 their amusements are often coarse ; elegance and refine- 
 ment are wanting in them ; but at least they have heart- 
 iness. Oh that the hearty enjoyments of these merry- 
 makings could be retained in union with less vulgar 
 feeling ! Formerly religion stamped its holy character 
 on the celebration of country festivals, and purified
 
 COMPENSA TION. 6/ 
 
 the pleasures without depriving them of their sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 The hour arrives at which the doors of the porcelain 
 manufactory and the museum of pottery are open to the 
 public. I meet Frances and Madeleine again in the first 
 room. Frightened at finding themselves in the midst 
 of such regal magnificence, they hardly dare walk ; they 
 speak in a low tone, as if they were in a church. 
 
 " We are in the king's house," said the eldest sister, 
 forgetting that there is no longer a king in France. 
 
 I encourage them to go on ; I walk first, and they 
 make up their minds to follow me. 
 
 What wonders are brought together in this collec- 
 tion ! Here we see clay moulded into every shape, tinted 
 with every colour, and combined with every sort of sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Earth and wood are the first substances worked 
 upon by man, and seem more particularly meant for his 
 use. They, like the domestic animals, are the essential 
 accessories of his life ; therefore there must be a more 
 intimate connection between them and us. Stone and 
 metals require long preparations ; they resist our first 
 efforts, and belong less to the individual than to com- 
 munities. Earth and wood are, on the contrary, the 
 principal instruments of the isolated being who must 
 feed and shelter himself. 
 
 This, doubtless, makes me feel so much interested 
 in the collection 1 am examining. These cups, so 
 roughly modelled by the savage, admit me to a knowl- 
 edge of some of his habits ; these elegant yet incor-
 
 68 AN A TTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 rectly formed vases of the Indian tell me of a declining 
 intelligence, in which still glimmers the twilight of what 
 was once bright sunshine ; these jars, loaded with ara- 
 besques, show the fancy of the Arab rudely and igno- 
 rantly copied by the Spaniard ! We find here the star.jp 
 of every race, every country, and every age. 
 
 My companions seemed little interested in these his- 
 torical associations ; they looked at all with that credu- 
 lous admiration which leaves no room for examination 
 or discussion. Madeleine read the name written under 
 every piece of workmanship, and her sister answered 
 with an exclamation of wonder. 
 
 In this way we reached a little courtyard, where 
 they had thrown away the fragments of some broken 
 china. Frances perceived a coloured saucer almost whole, 
 of which she took possession as a record of the visit she 
 was making ; henceforth she would have a specimen of 
 the Sevres china, which is only made for kings ! I would 
 not undeceive her by telling her that the products of 
 the manufactory are sold all over the world, and that 
 her saucer, before it was cracked, was the same as those 
 that are bought at the shops for sixpence ! Why should 
 I destroy the illusions of her humble existence ? Are 
 we to break down the hedge-flowers which perfume our 
 paths ? ^Things are oftenest nothing in themselves ; the 
 thoughts we attach to them alone give them valuey To 
 rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover some use- 
 less reality, is to be like those learned men who will see 
 nothing in a plant but the chemical elements of which it 
 is composed.
 
 COM PENS A TION. 69 
 
 On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who 
 had taken possession of me with the freedom of artless- 
 ness, invited me to share the luncheon they had brought 
 with them. I declined at first, but they insisted with so 
 n.uch good nature, that I feared to pain them, and with 
 some awkwardness gave way. 
 
 We had only to look for a convenient spot. I led 
 them up the hill, and we found a plot of grass enamelled 
 with daisies, and shaded by two walnut-trees. 
 
 Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. All 
 her life she had dreamed of a dinner out on the grass ! 
 While helping her sister to take the provisions from the 
 basket, she tells me of all her expeditions into the coun- 
 try that had been planned, and put off. Frances, on the 
 other hand, was brought up at Montmorency, and before 
 she became an orphan she had often gone back to her 
 nurse's house. That which had the attraction of novelty 
 for her sister, had for her the charm of recollection. She 
 told the vintage harvests to which her parents had 
 taken her; the rides on Mother Luret's donkey, that 
 they could not make go to the right without pulling 
 him to the left ; the cherry-gathering ; and the sails on 
 the lake in the boat of the innkeeper. 
 
 These recollections have all the charm and freshness 
 of childhood. Frances recalls to herself less what she 
 has seen than what she has felt. While she is talking 
 the cloth is laid, and we sit down under a tree. Before 
 us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses 
 abutting upon the gardens and the slopes of the hill ; on 
 the other side spreads out the park of St. Cloud, with
 
 ;o 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 its magnificent clumps of' trees interspersed with mead- 
 ows ; above stretch the heavens like an immense ocean, 
 in which the clouds are sailing ! I look at this beauti- 
 ful country, and I listen to these good old maids ; I 
 admire, and I am interested ; and time passes gently 
 on without my perceiving it. 
 
 At last the sun sets, and we have to think of re- 
 turning. While Madeleine and Frances clear away the 
 
 dinner, I walk down 
 to the manufactory to 
 ask the hour. The 
 merrymaking is at its 
 height ; the blasts of 
 the trombones resound 
 from the band under 
 the acacias. For a few 
 moments I forget my- 
 self with looking about- 
 but I have promised 
 the two sisters to take 
 them back to the Belle- 
 vue station : the train 
 cannot wait, and I 
 make haste to climb the 
 path again which leads 
 to the walnut-trees. 
 
 Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the 
 other side of the hedge. Madeleine and Frances were 
 speaking to a poor girl whose clothes were burnt, her 
 hands blackened, and her face tied up with blood-
 
 COMPENSATION. >j\ 
 
 stained bandages. I saw that she was one of the girls 
 employed at the gunpowder mills, which are built 
 higher up on the common. An explosion had taken 
 place a few days before ; the girl's mother and elder 
 sister were killed ; she herself escaped by a miracle, 
 and was now left without any means of support. She 
 told all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner 
 of one who has always been accustomed to suffer. The 
 two sisters were much affected ; I saw them consulting 
 with one another in a low tone : then Frances took 
 thirty sous out of a little coarse silk purse, which was 
 all they had left, and gave them to the poor girl. I 
 hastened on to that side of the hedge ; but, before I 
 reached it, I met the two old sisters, who called out 
 to me that they would not return by the railway, but 
 on foot ! 
 
 I then understood that the money they had meant 
 for the journey had just been given to the beggar ! 
 Good, like evil, is contagious : I run to the poor wound- 
 ed girl, give her the sum that was to pay for my own 
 place, and return to Frances and Madeleine, and tell 
 them I will walk with them. 
 
 I am just come back from taking them home ; and 
 have left them delighted with their day, the recollec- 
 tion of which will long make them happy. 
 
 This morning I was pitying those whose lives are 
 obscure and joyless ; now, I understand that God has 
 provided a compensation with every trial. The small- 
 est pleasure derives from rarity a relish otherwise un-
 
 72 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 known. Enjoyment is only what we feel to be such, 
 and the luxurious man feels no longer : satiety has de- 
 stroyed his appetite, while privation preserves to the 
 other that first of earthly blessings, the being easily made 
 happy. Oh, that I could persuade every one of this ! 
 that so the rich might not abuse their riches, and that 
 the poor might have patience. If happiness is the 
 rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of it is 
 the rarest of virtues. 
 
 Madeleine and Frances ! ye poor old maids whose 
 courage, resignation, and generous hearts are your only 
 wealth, pray for the wretched who give themselves up 
 to despair ; for the unhappy who hate and envy ; and 
 for the unfeeling into whose enjoyments no pity enters.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 
 
 June *jt]i, four d clock A. J/. I am not surprised at 
 hearing, when I awake, the birds singing so joyfully 
 outside my window ; it is only by living, as they and I 
 do, in a top story, that one comes to know how cheer- 
 ful the mornings really are up among the roofs. It is 
 there that the sun sends his first rays, and the breeze 
 comes with the fragrance of the gardens and woods ; 
 there that a wandering butterfly sometimes ventures 
 among the flowers of the attic, and that the songs of 
 the industrious workwoman welcome the dawn of day. 
 The lower stories are still deep in sleep, silence, and 
 shadow, while here labour, light, and song already 
 reign. 
 
 What life is around me ! See the swallow return- 
 ing from her search for food, with her beak full of in- 
 sects for her young ones ; the sparrows shake the dew
 
 74 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 from their wings while they chase one another in the 
 sunshine ; and my neighbours throw open their win- 
 dows, and welcome the morning with their fresh faces ! 
 Delightful hour of waking, when everything returns to 
 feeling and to motion ; when the first light of day 
 strikes upon creation, and brings it to life again, as the 
 magic wand struck the palace of the Sleeping Beauty 
 in the wood ! It is a moment of rest from every mis- 
 ery ; the sufferings of the sick are allayed, and a breath 
 of hope enters into the hearts of the despairing. But, 
 alas ! it is but a short respite ! Everything will soon 
 resume its wonted course : the great human machine, 
 with its long strains, its deep gasps, its collisions, and 
 its crashes, will be again put in motion. 
 
 The tranquillity of this first morning hour reminds 
 me of that of our first years of life. Then, too, the sun 
 shines brightly, the air is fragrant, and the illusions of 
 youth those birds of our life's morning sing around 
 us. Why do they fly away when we are older ? Where 
 do this sadness and this solitude, which gradually steal 
 upon us, come from ? The course seems to be the same 
 with individuals and with communities: at starting, 
 so readily made happy, so easily enchanted ; and at the 
 goal, the bitter disappointment of reality ! The road, 
 which began among hawthorns and primroses, ends 
 speedily in deserts or in precipices ! Why is there so 
 much confidence at first, so much doubt at last? Has, 
 then, the knowledge of life no other end but to make it 
 unfit for happiness? Must we condemn ourselves to ig- 
 norance if we would preserve hope ? Is the world and
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 75 
 
 is the individual man intended, after all, to find rest only 
 in an eternal childhood ? 
 
 How many times have I asked myself these ques- 
 tions ! Solitude has the advantage or the danger of mak- 
 ing us continually search more deeply into the same 
 ideas. As our discourse is only with ourself, we always 
 give the same direction to the conversation ; we are not 
 called to turn it to the subject which occupies another 
 mind, or interests another's feelings ; and so an involun- 
 tary inclination makes us return forever to knock at the 
 same doors ! 
 
 I interrupted my reflections to put my attic in order. 
 I hate the look of disorder, because it shows either a 
 contempt for details or an unaptness for spiritual life. 
 To arrange the things among which we have to live, is 
 to establish the relation of property and of use between 
 them and us : it is to lay the foundation of those habits 
 without which man tends to the savage state. What, in 
 fact, is social organization but a series of habits, settled 
 in accordance with the dispositions of our nature ? 
 
 I distrust both the intellect and the morality of those 
 people to whom disorder is of no consequence who can 
 live at ease in an Augean stable. What surrounds us, 
 reflects more or less that which is within us. The mind 
 is like one of those dark lanterns which, in spite of every- 
 thing, still throw some light around. If our tastes did 
 not reveal our character, they would be no longer tastes, 
 but instincts. 
 
 While I w r as arranging everything in my attic, my 
 eyes rested on the little almanac hanging over my
 
 76 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 chimney-piece. I looked for the day of the month, and I 
 saw these words written in large letters: "FETE DIEU"! 
 
 It is to-day ! In this great city, where there are no 
 longer any public religious solemnities, there is nothing 
 to remind us of it ; but it is, in truth, the period so hap- 
 pily chosen by the primitive church. " The day kept in 
 honor of the Creator," says Chateaubriand, " happens at 
 a time when the heaven and the earth declare His power, 
 when the woods and fields are full of new life, and all 
 are united by the happiest ties : there is not a single 
 widowed plant in the fields." 
 
 What recollections these words have just awakened ! 
 I left off what I was about, I leaned my elbows on the 
 window-sill, and, with my head between my two hands, 
 I went back in thought to the little town where the first 
 days of my childhood were passed. 
 
 The Fete Dieu was then one of the great events of 
 my life ! It was necessary to be diligent and obe- 
 dient a long time beforehand, to deserve to share in 
 it. I still recollect with what raptures of expectation 
 I got up on the morning of the day. There was a 
 holy joy in the air. The neighbours, up earlier than 
 usual, hung cloths with flowers or figures, worked in 
 tapestry, along the streets. I went from one to an- 
 other, by turns admiring religious scenes of the mid- 
 dle ages, mythological compositions of the Renais- 
 sance, old battles in the style of Louis XIV., and the 
 Arcadias of Madame de Pompadour. All this world 
 of phantoms seemed to be coming forth from the dust of 
 past ages, to assist silent and motionless at the holy
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 
 
 77 
 
 ceremony. I looked, alternately in fear and wonder, at 
 those terrible warriors with their swords always raised, 
 those beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow which 
 never left the bow, and those shepherds in satin breeches 
 always playing the flute at the feet of the perpetually 
 smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, when the wind blew 
 behind these hanging pictures, it seemed to me that the 
 figures themselves moved, and I watched to see them 
 detach themselves from the wall, and take their places in 
 the procession ! But these impressions were vague and 
 transitory. The feeling that predominated over every 
 other was that of an overflowing yet quiet joy. In the 
 midst of all the floating draperies, the scattered flowers, 
 the voices of the maidens, and the gladness which, like a 
 perfume, exhaled from everything, you felt transported 
 in spite of yourself. The joyful sounds of the festival 
 were repeated in your heart, in a thousand melodious 
 echoes. You were more indulgent, more holy, more 
 loving ! For God was not only manifesting himself 
 without, but also within us. 
 
 And then the altars for the occasion ! the flowery 
 arbours! the triumphal arches made of green boughs! 
 What competition among the different parishes for the 
 erection of the resting-places * where the procession was 
 to halt! It was who should contribute the rarest and 
 the most beautiful of his possessions ! 
 
 It was there I made my first sacrifice ! 
 
 The wreaths of flowers were arranged, the candles 
 
 *The reposoirs, or temporary altars, on which the consecrated elements 
 are placed while the procession halts.
 
 78 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 lighted, and the Tabernacle * dressed with roses ; but 
 one was wanting fit to crown the whole ! All the neigh- 
 bouring gardens had been ransacked. I alone possessed 
 a flower worthy of such a place. It was on the rose- 
 tree given me by my mother on my birthday. I had 
 watched it for several months, and there was no other 
 bud to blow on the tree. There it was, half open, in its 
 mossy nest, the object of such long expectations, and of 
 all a child's pride ! I hesitated for some moments. No 
 one had asked me for it ; I might easily avoid losing it. 
 I should hear no reproaches, but one rose noiselessly 
 within me. When every one else had given all they had, 
 ought I alone to keep back my treasure ? Ought I to 
 grudge to God one of the gifts which, like all the rest, 
 I had received from Him ? At this last thought I 
 plucked the flower from the stem, and took it to put at 
 the top of the Tabernacle. Ah ! why does the recollec- 
 tion of this sacrifice, which was so hard and yet so sweet 
 to me, now make me smile? Is it so certain that the 
 value of a gift is in itself, rather than in the intention ? 
 If the cup of cold water in the gospel is remembered to 
 the poor man, why should not the flower be remembered 
 to the child ? Let us not look down upon the child's 
 simple acts of generosity ; it is these which accustom 
 the soul to self-denial and to sympathy. I cherished 
 this moss-rose a long time as a sacred talisman ; I had 
 reason to cherish it always, as the record of the first 
 victory won over myself. 
 
 It is now many years since I witnessed the celebra- 
 
 *An ornamental case or cabinet, which contains the bread and wine.
 
 I plucked the flower from the stem.
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. ^ 
 
 tion of the Fete Dicu ; but should I again feel in it 
 the happy sensations of former days ? I still remember 
 how, when the procession had passed, I walked through 
 the streets strewn with flowers and shaded with green 
 boughs. I felt intoxicated by the lingering perfumes of 
 the incense, mixed with the fragrance of syringas, jessa- 
 mines, and roses, and I seemed no longer to touch the 
 ground as I went along. I smiled at everything ; the 
 whole world was Paradise in my eyes, and it seemed 
 to me that God was floating in the air! 
 
 Moreover, this feeling was not the excitement of the 
 moment : it might be more intense on certain days, but 
 at the same time it continued through the ordinary 
 course of my life. Many years thus passed for me in an 
 expansion of heart, and a trustfulness which prevented 
 sorrow, if not from coming, at least from staying with 
 me. Sure of not being alone, I soon took heart again, like 
 the child who recovers its courage, because it hears its 
 mother's voice close by. ( Why have I lost that confi- 
 dence of my childhood ?\ Shall I never feel again so 
 deeply that God is here ? 
 
 How strange the association of our thoughts ! A day 
 of the month recalls my infancy, and see, all the recol- 
 lections of my former years are growing up around me ! 
 Why was I so happy then ? I consider well, and noth- 
 ing is sensibly changed in my condition. I possess, as I 
 did then, health and my daily bread ; the only difference 
 is, that I am now responsible for myself ! As a child, I 
 accepted life when it came ; another cared and provided 
 for me. As long as I fulfilled my present duties I was
 
 8o AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 at peace within, and I left the future to the prudence of 
 my father ! My destiny was a ship, in the direction of 
 which I had no share, and in which I sailed as a common 
 passenger. There was the whole secret of childhood's 
 happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has de- 
 prived me of it. When my lot was entrusted to my own 
 and sole keeping, I thought to make myself master of it 
 by means of a long insight into the future. I have filled 
 the present hour with anxieties, by occupying my 
 thoughts with the future; I have put my judgment in 
 the place of Providence, and the happy child is changed 
 into the anxious man. 
 
 A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important les- 
 son. Who knows that, if I had trusted more to Him 
 who rules the world, I should not have been spared all 
 this anxiety ? It may be that happiness is not possible 
 here below, but on the condition of living like a child, 
 giving ourselves up to the duties of each day as it comes, 
 and trusting in the goodness of our heavenly Father for 
 all besides. 
 
 This reminds me of my uncle Maurice ! Whenever I 
 have need to strengthen myself in all that is good, I turn 
 my thoughts to him ; I see again the gentle expression 
 of his half-smiling, half-mournful face ; I hear his voice, 
 always soft and soothing as a breath of summer ! The 
 remembrance of him protects my life, and gives it light. 
 He, too, was a saint and martyr here below. Others 
 have pointed out the path of heaven ; he has taught us 
 to see those of earth aright. 
 
 But except the angels, who are charged with noting
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 8 1 
 
 down the sacrifices performed in secret, and the virtues 
 which are never known, who has ever heard speak of my 
 uncle Maurice? Perhaps I alone remember his name, 
 and still recall his history. 
 
 Well ! I will write it, not for others, but for myself ! 
 They say that, at the sight of the Apollo, the body 
 erects itself and assumes a more dignified attitude : in 
 the same way, the soul should feel itself raised and en- 
 nobled by the recollection of a good man's life ! 
 
 A ray of the rising sun lights up the little table on 
 which I write ; the breeze brings me in the scent of the 
 mignonette, and the swallows wheel about my window 
 with joyful twitterings. The image of my uncle Mau- 
 rice will be in its proper place amid the songs, the sun- 
 shine, and the fragrance. 
 
 Seven o clock. -It is with men's lives as with days : 
 some dawn radiant with a thousand colors, others dark 
 with gloomy clouds. That of my uncle Maurice was 
 one of the latter. He was so sickly when he came into 
 the world, that they thought he must die ; but, not- 
 withstanding these anticipations, which might be called 
 hopes, he continued to live, suffering and deformed. 
 
 He was deprived of all joys as well as of all the attrac- 
 tions of childhood. He was oppressed because he was 
 weak, and laughed at for his deformity. In vain the 
 little hunchback opened his arms to the world ; the 
 world scoffed at him, and went its way. 
 
 However, he still had his mother, and it was to her 
 that the child directed all the feelings of a heart repulsed 
 by others. With her he found shelter, and was happy,
 
 8 2 AN A TTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 till he reached the age when a man must take his place 
 in life ; and Maurice had to content himself with that 
 which others had refused with contempt. His education 
 would have qualified him for any course of life ; and he 
 became an octroi-clerk * in one of the little toll-houses at 
 the entrance of his native town. 
 
 He was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet 
 square, with no relaxation from the office accounts but 
 reading and his mother's visits. On fine summer days 
 she came to work at the door of his hut, under the shade 
 of a clematis planted by Maurice. And, even when she 
 was silent, her presence was a pleasant change for the 
 hunchback : he heard the clinking of her long knitting- 
 needles ; he saw her mild and mournful profile, which 
 reminded him of so many courageously borne trials ; he 
 could every now and then rest his hand affectionately on 
 that bowed-down neck, and exchange a smile with her ! 
 
 This comfort was soon to be taken from him. His 
 old mother fell sick, and at the end of a few days he had 
 to give up all hope. Maurice was overcome at the idea 
 of a separation which would henceforth leave him alone 
 on earth, and abandoned himself to boundless grief. He 
 knelt by the bedside of the dying woman, he called her 
 by the fondest names, he pressed her in his arms, as if 
 he could so keep her in life. His mother tried to re- 
 turn his caresses, and to answer him ; but her hands 
 were cold, her voice already gone. She could only press 
 her lips against the forehead of her son, heave a sigh, 
 and close her eyes forever ! 
 
 *The octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the entrance of the towns.
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 83 
 
 They tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted 
 them and threw himself on that now motionless form. 
 
 " Dead ! " cried he ; " dead ! She who had never left 
 me, she who was the only one in the world who loved 
 me ! You, my mother, dead ! What then remains for 
 me here below? " 
 
 A stifled voice replied : 
 
 " God ! " 
 
 Maurice, startled, raised himself up ! Was it a last 
 sigh from the dead, or his own conscience, that had an- 
 swered him ? He did not seek to know, but he under- 
 stood the answer, and accepted it. 
 
 It was then that I first knew him. I often went to 
 see him in his little toll-house. He mixed in my child- 
 ish games, told me his finest stories, and let me gather 
 his flowers. Deprived as he was of all external attract- 
 iveness, he showed himself full of kindness to all who 
 came to him, and, though he never would put himself 
 forward, he had a welcome for every one. Deserted, 
 despised, he submitted to everything with a gentle 
 patience ; and while he was thus stretched on the cross 
 of life, amid the insults of his executioners, he repeated 
 with Christ, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do." 
 
 No other clerk showed so much honesty, zeal, and 
 intelligence ; but those who otherwise might have pro- 
 moted him as his services deserved were repulsed by 
 his deformity. As he had no patrons, he found his 
 claims were always disregarded. They preferred before 
 him those who were better able to make themselves
 
 84 AN A TTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 agreeable, and seemed to be granting him a favour when 
 letting him keep the humble office which enabled him to 
 live. Uncle Maurice bore injustice as he had borne 
 contempt ; unfairly treated by men, he raised his eyes 
 higher, and trusted in the justice of Him who cannot 
 be deceived. 
 
 He lived in an old house in the suburb, where many 
 workpeople, as poor but not as forlorn as he, also 
 lodged. Among these neighbours there was a single 
 woman, who lived by herself in a little garret, into 
 which came both wind and rain. She was a young girl, 
 pale, silent, and with nothing to recommend her but her 
 wretchedness and her resignation to it. She was never 
 seen speaking to any other woman, and no song cheered 
 her garret. She worked without interest and without 
 relaxation ; a depressing gloom seemed to envelop her 
 like a shroud. Her dejection affected Maurice ; he at- 
 tempted to speak to her : she replied mildly, but in few 
 words. It was easy to see that she preferred her silence 
 and her solitude to the little hunchback's good will ; he 
 perceived it, and said no more. 
 
 But Toinette's needle was hardly sufficient for her 
 support, and presently work failed her ! Maurice learned 
 that the poor girl was in want of everything, and that 
 the tradesmen refused to give her credit. He immedi- 
 ately went to them, and privately engaged to pay them 
 for what they supplied Toinette with. 
 
 Things went on in this way for several months. The 
 young dressmaker continued out of work, until she was 
 at last frightened at the bills she had contracted with
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 85 
 
 the shopkeepers. When she came to an explanation 
 with them, everything was discovered. Her first impulse 
 was to run to Uncle Maurice, and thank him on her 
 knees. Her habitual reserve had given way to a burst 
 of deepest feeling. It seemed as if gratitude had melted 
 all the ice of that numbed heart. 
 
 Being now no longer embarrassed with a secret, the 
 little hunchback could give greater efficacy to his good 
 offices. Toinette became to him a sister, for whose 
 wants he had a right to provide. It was the first time 
 since the death of his mother that he had been able to 
 share his life with another. The young woman re- 
 ceived his attentions with feeling, but with reserve. 
 All Maurice's efforts were insufficient to dispel her 
 gloom : she seemed touched by his kindness, and 
 sometimes expressed her sense of it with warmth ; but 
 there she stopped. Her heart was a closed book, which 
 the little hunchback might bend over, but could not 
 read. In truth he cared little to do so : he gave him- 
 self up to the happiness of being no longer alone, and 
 took Toinette such as her long trials had made her ; he 
 loved her as she was, and wished for nothing else but 
 still to enjoy her company. 
 
 This thought insensibly took possession of his mind, 
 to the exclusion of all besides. The poor girl was as 
 forlorn as himself ; she had become accustomed to the 
 deformity of the hunchback, and she seemed to look 
 on him with an affectionate sympathy ! What more 
 could he wish for? Until then, the hopes of making 
 himself acceptable to a helpmate had been repelled by
 
 86 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Maurice as a dream ; but chance seemed willing to 
 make it a reality. After much hesitation he took cour- 
 age, and decided to speak to her. 
 
 It was evening ; the little hunchback, in much agi- 
 tation, directed his steps toward the workwoman's gar- 
 ret. Just as he was about to enter, he thought he heard 
 a strange voice pronouncing the maiden's name. He 
 quickly pushed open the door, and perceived Toinette 
 weeping, and leaning on the shoulder of a young man in 
 the dress of a sailor. 
 
 At the sight of my uncle, she disengaged herself 
 quickly, and ran to him, crying out : 
 
 "Ah ! come in come in ! It is he that I thought 
 was dead : it is Julien ; it is my betrothed ! " 
 
 Maurice tottered, and drew back. A single word 
 had told him all ! 
 
 It seemed to him as if the ground shook and his 
 heart was going to break ; but the same voice that he 
 had heard by his mother's death-bed again sounded in 
 his ears, and he soon recovered himself. God was still 
 his friend ! 
 
 He himself accompanied the newly maried pair on 
 the road when they went away, and, after having wished 
 them all the happiness which was denied to him, he re- 
 turned with resignation to the old house in the suburb. 
 
 It was there that he ended his life, forsaken by men, 
 but not as he said by the Father which is in heaven. He 
 felt His presence everywhere ; it was to him in the 
 place of all else. When he died, it was with a smile, 
 and like an exile setting out for his own country. He
 
 UNCLE MAURICE. 87 
 
 who had consoled him in poverty and ill health, when 
 he was suffering from injustice and forsaken by all, had 
 made death a gain and blessing to him. 
 
 Eight o'clock. All I have just written has pained me ! 
 Till now I have looked into life for instruction how to 
 live. Is it then true that human maxims are not always 
 sufficient ? that beyond goodness, prudence, moderation, 
 humility, self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth, 
 which alone can face great misfortunes? and that, if man 
 has need of virtues for others, he has need of religion 
 for himself? 
 
 When, in youth, we drink our wine with a merry 
 heart, as the Scripture expresses it, we think we are 
 sufficient for ourselves ; strong, happy, and beloved, we 
 believe, like Ajax, we shall be able to escape every 
 storm in spite of the gods. But later in life when the 
 back is bowed, when happiness proves a fading flower, 
 and the affections grow chill then, in fear of the void 
 and the darkness, we stretch out our arms, like the child 
 overtaken by night, and we call for help to Him who is 
 everywhere. 
 
 I was asking this morning why this growing con- 
 fusion alike for society and for the individual ? In vain 
 does human reason from hour to hour light some new 
 torch on the roadside : the night continues to grow ever 
 darker ! Is it not because we are content to withdraw 
 farther and farther from God, the Sun of spirits ? 
 
 But what do these hermit's reveries signify to the 
 world ? The inward turmoils of most men are stifled by 
 the outward ones : life does not give them time to ques-
 
 88 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 tion themselves. Have they time to know what they 
 are, and what they should be, whose whole thoughts are 
 in the next lease or the last price of stock ? Heaven is 
 very high, and wise men look only to the earth. 
 
 But I poor savage amid all this civilization, who seek 
 neither power nor riches, and who have found in my 
 own thoughts the home and shelter of my spirit I can 
 go back with impunity to these recollections of my child- 
 hood ; and, if this our great city no longer honours the 
 name of God with a festival, I will strive still to keep 
 the feast to Him in my heart.
 
 THE PRICE OF POWER 
 AND THE WORTH OF FAME. 
 
 Sunday, July ist. 
 Yesterday the month 
 dedicated to Juno (Ju- 
 nius, June) by the Ro- 
 mans ended. To-day we 
 enter on July. 
 
 In ancient Rome this latter month 
 was called Quint His (the fifth), be- 
 cause the year, which was then only divided into ten 
 parts, began in March. When Numa Pompilius di- 
 vided it into twelve months this name of Quint His 
 was preserved, as well as those that followed Scx- 
 tilis, September, October, November, December although 
 these designations did not accord with the newly ar- 
 ranged order of the months. At last, after a time the 
 month Quint His, in which Julius Caesar was born, was 
 called Julius, from whence we have July. Thus this 
 name, placed in the calendar, is become the imperish- 
 able record of a great man ; it is an immortal epi-
 
 go AN ATTI'C PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 taph on Time's highway, engraved by the admiration 
 of man. 
 
 How many similar inscriptions are there! Seas, 
 continents, mountains, stars, and monuments have all in 
 succession served the same purpose ! We have turned 
 the whole world into a Golden Book, like that in which 
 the state of Venice used to enroll its illustrious names 
 and its great deeds. It seems that mankind feels a ne- 
 cessity for honouring itself in its elect ones, and that it 
 raises itself in its own eyes by choosing heroes from 
 among its own race. The human family love to pre- 
 serve the memory of the " parvenus " of glory, as we 
 cherish that of a renowned ancestor, or of a bene- 
 factor. 
 
 In fact, the talents granted to a single individual do 
 not benefit himself alone, but are gifts to the world ; 
 every one shares them, for every one suffers or benefits 
 by his actions. Genius is a lighthouse, meant to give 
 light from afar ; the man who bears it is but the rock 
 upon which this lighthouse is built. 
 
 I love to dwell upon these thoughts ; they explain to 
 me in what consists our admiration for glory. When 
 glory has benefitted men, that admiration is gratitude : 
 when it is only remarkable in itself, it is the pride of 
 race; as men, we love to immortalize the most shining 
 examples of humanity. 
 
 Who knows whether we do not obey the same in- 
 stinct in submitting to the hand of power? Apart from 
 the requirements of a gradation of ranks, or the conse- 
 quences of a conquest, the multitude delight to surround
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. QI 
 
 their chiefs with privileges whether it be that their 
 vanity makes them thus to aggrandize one of their own 
 creations, or whether they try to conceal the humilia- 
 tion of subjection by exaggerating the importance of 
 those who rule them. They wish to honour themselves 
 through their master ; they elevate him on their 
 shoulders as on a pedestal ; they surround him with a 
 halo of light, in order that some of it may be reflected 
 upon themselves. It is still the fable of the dog who 
 contents himself with the chain and collar, so that they 
 are of gold. 
 
 This servile vanity is not less natural or less common 
 than the vanity of dominion. Whoever feels himself 
 incapable of command, at least desires to obey a power- 
 ful chief. Serfs have been know to consider themselves 
 dishonoured when they became the property of a mere 
 count after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Si- 
 mon mentions a valet who would only wait upon mar- 
 quises. 
 
 July ?t/i, seven o'clock, P. M. I have just now been up 
 the Boulevards ; it was the opera night, and there was 
 a crowd of carriages in the Rue Lepelletier. The foot 
 passengers who were stopped at a crossing recognized 
 the persons in some of these as they went by, and men- 
 tioned their names ; they were those of celebrated or 
 powerful men, the successful ones of the day. 
 
 Near me there was a man looking on with hollow 
 cheeks and eager eyes, and whose black coat was 
 threadbare. He followed with envious looks these pos- 
 sessors of the privileges of power or of fame, and I read
 
 9 2 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 on his lips, which curled with a bitter smile, all that 
 passed in his mind. 
 
 " Look at them, the lucky fellows ! " thought he ; " all 
 the pleasures of wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are 
 theirs. Their names are renowned, all their wishes ful- 
 filled ; they are the sovereigns of the world either by 
 their intellect or their power; and while I, poor and un- 
 known, toil painfully along the road below, they wing 
 their way over the mountain-tops gilded by the broad 
 sunshine of prosperity." 
 
 I have come home in deep thought. Is it true that 
 there are these inequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, 
 but in the happiness of men ? Do genius and authority 
 really wear life as a crown, while the greater part of 
 mankind receive it as a yoke ? Is the difference of rank 
 but a different use of men's dispositions and talents, or a 
 real inequality in their destinies? A solemn question, 
 as it regards the verification of God's impartiality. 
 
 July 8th, noon. I went this morning to call upon a 
 friend from the same province as myself, and who is 
 first usher in waiting to one of our ministers. I took 
 him some letters from his family, left for him by a trav- 
 eller just come from Brittany. He wished me to stay. 
 
 " To-day," said he, " the minister gives no audience ; 
 he takes a day of rest with his family. His younger sis- 
 ters are arrived : he will take them this morning to St. 
 Cloud, and in the evening he has invited his friends to a 
 private ball. I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of 
 the day. We can dine together ; read the news while 
 you are waiting for me."
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 03 
 
 I sat down at a table covered with newspapers, all of 
 which I looked over by turns. Most of them contained 
 severe criticisms on the last political acts of the minister; 
 some of them added suspicions as to the honour of the 
 minister himself. 
 
 Just as I had finished reading, a secretary came for 
 them to take them to his master. 
 
 He was then about to read these accusations, to suf- 
 fer silently the abuse of all those tongues which were 
 holding him up to indignation or to scorn ! Like the 
 Roman victor in his triumph, he had to endure the in- 
 sults of him who followed his car, relating to the crowd 
 his follies, his ignorance, or his vices. 
 
 But, among the arrows shot at him from every side, 
 would no one be found poisoned ? Would not one 
 reach some spot in his heart where the wound would be 
 incurable ? What is the worth of a life exposed to the 
 attacks of envious hatred or furious conviction ? The 
 Christians yielded only the fragments of their flesh to 
 the beasts of the amphitheatres ; the man in power gives 
 up his peace, his affections, his honour, to the cruel bites 
 of the pen. 
 
 While I was musing upon these dangers of greatness, 
 the usher entered hastily. Important news has been re- 
 ceived : the minister is just summoned to the council; 
 he will not be able to take his sisters to St. Cloud. 
 
 I saw, through the windows, the young ladies, who 
 were waiting at the door, sorrowfully go up stairs again, 
 while their brother went off to the council. The carriage, 
 which should have gone filled with so much family hap-
 
 94 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 piness, is just out of sight, carrying only the cares of a 
 statesman in it. 
 
 The usher came back discontented and disappointed. 
 
 The more or less of liberty which he is allowed to 
 enjoy is his barometer of the political atmosphere. If 
 he gets leave, all goes well ; if he is kept at his post, the 
 country is in danger. His opinion on public affairs is 
 but a calculation of his own interest. My friend is 
 almost a statesman 
 
 I had some conversation with him, and he told me 
 several curious particulars of public life. 
 
 The new minister has old friends whose opinions he 
 opposes, though he still retains his personal regard for 
 them. Though separated from them by the colours he 
 fights under, they remain united by old associations; 
 but the exigencies of party forbid him to meet them. 
 If their intercourse continued, it would awaken suspi- 
 cion ; people would imagine that some dishonourable 
 bargain was going on ; his friends would be held to be 
 traitors desirous to sell themselves, and he the corrupt 
 minister prepared to buy them. He has, therefore, been 
 obliged to break off friendships of twenty years' stand- 
 ing, and to sacrifice attachments which had become a 
 second nature. 
 
 Sometimes, however, the minister still gives way to 
 his old feelings ; he receives or visits his friends pri- 
 vately ; he shuts himself up with them, and talks of 
 the times when they could be open friends. By dint 
 of precautions they have hitherto succeeded in con- 
 cealing this plot of friendship against policy ; but sooner
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND IVOR Til OF FAME. 
 
 95 
 
 or later the newspapers will be informed of it, and will 
 denounce him to the country as an object of distrust. 
 
 For whether hatred be honest or dishonest, it never 
 shrinks from any accusation. Sometimes it even pro- 
 ceeds to crime. The usher assured me that several 
 warnings had been given the minister which had made 
 him fear the vengeance of an assassin, and that he no 
 longer ventured out on foot. 
 
 Then, from one thing to another, I learned what 
 temptations came in to mislead or overcome his judg- 
 ment ; how he found himself fatally led into obliquities 
 which he could not but deplore. Misled by passion, 
 over-persuaded by entreaties, or compelled for reputa- 
 tion's sake, he has many times held the balance with an 
 unsteady hand. How sad the condition of him who is in 
 authority ! Not only are the miseries of power imposed 
 upon him, but its vices also, which, not content with 
 torturing, succeed in corrupting him. 
 
 We prolonged our conversation till it was interrupted 
 by the minister's return. He threw himself out of the 
 carriage with a handful of papers, and with an anxious 
 manner went into his own room. An instant afterwards 
 his bell was heard ; his secretary was called to send off 
 notices to all those invited for the evening ; the ball 
 would not take place ; they spoke mysteriously of bad 
 news transmitted by the telegraph, and in such cir- 
 cumstances an entertainment would seem to insult the 
 public sorrow. 
 
 I took leave of my friend, and here I am at home. 
 What I have just seen is an answer to my doubts the
 
 56 AN A TTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 other day. Now I know with what pangs men pay for 
 their dignities ; I now understand 
 
 "That Fortune sells what we believe she gives." 
 
 This explains to me why Charles V. aspired to the 
 repose of the cloister. 
 
 And yet I have only glanced at some of the suffer- 
 ings attached to power. What shall I say of the falls in 
 which its possessors are precipitated from the heights of 
 heaven to the very depths of the earth ? of that path of 
 pain along which they must forever bear the burden 
 of their responsibility? of that chain of decorums and 
 ennuis which encompasses every act of their lives, and 
 leaves them so little liberty ? 
 
 The partisans of despotism adhere with reason to 
 forms and ceremonies. If men wish to give unlimited 
 power to their fellow man, they must keep him sepa- 
 rated from ordinary humanity ; they must surround him 
 with a continual worship, and, by a constant ceremonial, 
 keep up for him the superhuman part they have granted 
 him. Our masters cannot remain absolute, but on con- 
 dition of being treated as idols. 
 
 But, after all, these idols are men, and, if the exclu- 
 sive life they must lead is an insult to the dignity of 
 others, it is also a torment to themselves. Every one 
 knows the law of the Spanish court, which used to 
 regulate, hour by hour, the actions of the king and 
 queen ; " so that," says Voltaire, " by reading it one 
 can tell all that the sovereigns of Spain have done, 
 or will do, from Philip II. to the day of judgment." It
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 
 
 97 
 
 was by this law that Philip III., when sick, was obliged 
 to endure such an excess of heat that he died in conse- 
 quence, because the Duke of Uzeda, who alone had the 
 right to put out the fire in the royal chamber, happened 
 to be absent. 
 
 When the wife of Charles II. was run away with on 
 a spirited horse, she was about to perish before any one 
 dared to save her, because etiquette forbade them to 
 touch the queen. Two young officers endangered their 
 lives for her by stopping the horse. The prayers and 
 tears of her whom they had just snatched from death 
 were necessary to obtain pardon for their crime. Every 
 one knows the anecdote related by Madame Campan of 
 Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. One day, being 
 at her toilet, when the shift was about to be presented 
 to her by one of the assistants, a lady of very ancient 
 family entered and claimed the honour, as she had the 
 right by etiquette ; but, at the moment she was going 
 to fulfil her duty, a lady of higher rank appeared, and in 
 her turn took the garment she was about to offer to the 
 queen ; when a third lady of still higher title came in 
 her turn, and was followed by a fourth, who was no 
 other than the king's sister. The shift was in this man- 
 ner passed from hand to hand, with ceremonies, courte- 
 sies, and compliments, before it came to the queen, who, 
 half naked and quite ashamed, was shivering with cold 
 for the great honour of etiquette. 
 
 \2th, seven o 'clock P. M. Oncoming home this even- 
 ing, I saw, standing at the door of a house, an old man, 
 whose appearance and features reminded me of my
 
 9 8 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 father. There was the same beautiful smile, the same 
 deep and penetrating eye, the same noble bearing- of the 
 
 head, and the same careless 
 attitude. 
 
 I began living over again 
 the first years of my life, 
 and recalling to myself the 
 conversations of that guide 
 whom God in His mercy 
 had given me, and whom in 
 His severity He had too 
 soon withdrawn. 
 
 When my father spoke, 
 it was not only to bring our 
 two minds together by an interchange of thought, but 
 his words always contained instruction. 
 
 Not that he endeavoured to make me feel it so : my 
 father feared everything that had the appearance of a 
 lesson. He used to say that virtue could make herself 
 devoted friends, but she did not take pupils : therefore 
 he was not anxious to teach goodness ; he contented 
 himself with sowing the seeds of it, certain that expe- 
 rience would make them grow. 
 
 How often has good grain fallen thus into a corner 
 of the heart, and, when it has been long forgotten, all at 
 once put forth the blade and come into ear. It is a 
 treasure laid aside in a time of ignorance, and we do not 
 know its value till the day we find ourselves in need 
 of it. 
 
 Among the stories with which he enlivened our
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 
 
 99 
 
 walks or our evenings, there is one which now returns 
 to my memory, doubtless because the time is come to 
 derive its lesson from it. 
 
 My father, who was apprenticed at the age of twelve 
 to one of those trading collectors who call themselves 
 naturalists, because they put all creation under glasses, 
 that they may sell it by retail, had always led a life of 
 poverty and labour. Obliged to rise before daybreak, by 
 turns shop-boy, clerk, and labourer, he was made to bear 
 alone all the work of a trade, of which his master reaped 
 all the profits. In truth, this latter had a peculiar talent 
 for making the most of the labour of other people. 
 Though unfit himself for the execution of any kind of 
 work, no one knew better how to sell it. His words 
 were a net, in which people found themselves taken be- 
 fore they were aware. And since he was devoted to 
 himself alone, and looked on the producer as his enemy, 
 and the buyer as his prey, he used them both up with 
 that obstinate perseverance which avarice teaches. 
 
 My father was a slave all the week, and could only 
 call himself his own on Sunday. The master naturalist, 
 who used to spend the day at the house of an old female 
 relation, then gave him his liberty on condition that he 
 dined out, and at his own expense. But my father used 
 secretly to take with him a crust of bread, which he hid in 
 his botanizing box, and, leaving Paris as soon as it was 
 day, he would wander far into the valley of Montmo- 
 rency, the wood of Meudon, or among the windings of 
 the Marne. Excited by the fresh air, the penetrating 
 perfume of the growing vegetation, or the fragrance of
 
 IOO AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 the honeysuckles, he would walk on until hunger or 
 fatigue made itself felt. Then he would sit under a 
 hedge, or by the side of a stream, and would make a 
 rustic feast, by turns on water-cresses, wood strawber- 
 ries, and blackberries picked from the hedges ; he would 
 gather a few plants, read a few pages of Florian, then in 
 greatest vogue, of Gessner, who was just translated, or 
 of Jean Jacques, of whom he possessed three odd vol- 
 umes. The day was thus passed alternately in activity 
 and rest, in pursuit and meditation, until the declining 
 sun warned him to take again the road to Paris, where 
 he would arrive, his feet torn and dusty, but his mind 
 invigorated for a whole week. 
 
 One day, as he was going toward the wood of 
 Viroflay, he met, close to it, a stranger who was occu- 
 pied in botanizing and in sorting the plants he had just 
 gathered. He was an oldish man with an honest face ; 
 but his eyes, which were rather deep set under his eye- 
 brows, had a somewhat uneasy and timid expression. 
 He was dressed in a brown cloth coat, a grey waistcoat, 
 black breeches, and worsted stockings, and held an 
 ivory-headed cane under his arm. His appearance 
 was that of a small retired tradesman who was living 
 on his means, and rather below the golden mean of 
 Horace. 
 
 My father, who had great respect for age, civilly 
 raised his hat to him as he passed. In doing so, a plant 
 he held fell from his hand ; the stranger stooped to take 
 it up, and recognised it. 
 
 " It is a Deutaria keptaphyllos" said he ; "I have not
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 
 
 101 
 
 yet seen any of them in these woods ; did you find it 
 near here, sir?" 
 
 My father replied that it was to be found in abun- 
 dance on the top of the 
 hill, toward Sevres, as well 
 as the great Laserpitium. 
 
 " That, too ! " repeated 
 the old man more briskly. 
 "Ah! I shall go and look 
 for them ; I have gathered 
 them formerly on the hill- 
 side of Robaila." 
 
 My father proposed to 
 take him. The stranger 
 accepted his proposal with 
 thanks, and hastened to 
 collect together the plants 
 he had gathered ; but all 
 of a sudden he appeared 
 seized with a scruple. He 
 observed to his companion 
 
 that the road he was going was half-way up the hill, 
 and led in the direction of the castle of the Dames 
 Royales at Bellevue ; that by going to the top he 
 would consequently turn out of his road, and that it 
 was not right he should take this trouble for a stranger. 
 
 My father insisted upon it with his habitual good 
 nature ; but, the more eagerness he showed, the more 
 obstinately the old man refused ; it even seemed to my 
 father that his good intention at last excited his sus-
 
 102 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PAKIS. 
 
 picion. He therefore contented himself with pointing 
 out the road to the stranger, whom he saluted, and he 
 soon lost sight of him. 
 
 Many hours passed by, and he thought no more of 
 the meeting. He had reached the copses of Chaville, 
 where, stretched on the ground in a mossy glade, he 
 read once more the last volume of " Emile." The de- 
 light of reading it had so completely absorbed him, that 
 he had ceased to see or hear anything around him. 
 With his cheeks flushed and his eyes moist, he repeated 
 aloud a passage which had particularly affected him. 
 
 An exclamation uttered close by him awoke him 
 from his ecstasy ; he raised his head, and perceived the 
 tradesman-looking person he had met before on the 
 cross-road at Viroflay. 
 
 . He was loaded with plants, the collection of which 
 seemed to have put him into high good humour. 
 
 "A thousand thanks, sir," said he to my father. " I 
 have found all that you told me of, and I am indebted 
 to you for a charming walk." 
 
 My father respectfully rose, and made a civil reply. 
 The stranger had grown quite familiar, and even asked 
 if his young brother botanist did not think of returning to 
 Paris. My father replied in the affirmative, and opened 
 his tin box to put his book back in it. 
 
 The stranger asked him with a smile if he might 
 without impertinence ask the name of it. My father 
 answered that it was Rousseau's " Emile." 
 
 The stranger immediately became grave. 
 
 They walked for some time side by side, my father
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. IO 3 
 
 expressing, with the warmth of a heart still throbbing 
 with emotion, all that this work had made him feel ; his 
 companion remaining cold and silent. The former ex- 
 tolled the glory of the great Genevese writer, whose 
 genius had made him a citizen of the world ; he expa- 
 tiated on this privilege of great thinkers, who reign in 
 spite of time and space, and gather together a people of 
 willing subjects out of all nations ; but the stranger sud- 
 denly interrupted him : 
 
 "And how do you know," said he mildly, " whether 
 Jean Jacques would not exchange the reputation which 
 you seem to envy for the life of one of the wood-cut- 
 ters whose chimney's smoke we see? What has fame 
 brought him except persecution ? The unknown friends 
 whom his books may have made for him content them- 
 selves with blessing him in their hearts, while the de- 
 clared enemies that they have drawn upon him pursue 
 him with violence and calumny ! His pride has been 
 flattered by success: how many times has it been 
 wounded by satire ? And be assured that human pride 
 is like the Sybarite, who was prevented from sleeping 
 by a crease in a rose-leaf. The activity of a vigourous 
 mind, by which the world profits, almost always turns 
 against him who possesses it. He expects more from it 
 as he grows older ; the ideal he pursues continually dis- 
 gusts him with the actual ; he is like a man who, with a 
 too-refined sight, discerns spots and blemishes in the 
 most beautiful face. I will not speak of stronger temp- 
 tations and of deeper downfalls. Genius, you have said, 
 is a kingdom ; but what virtuous man is not afraid of
 
 IO4 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 being a king ? He who feels only his great powers, is 
 with the weaknesses and passions of our nature prepar- 
 ing for great failures. Believe me, sir, the unhappy 
 man who wrote this book is no object of admiration or 
 of envy ; but, if you have a feeling heart, pity him ! " 
 
 My father, astonished at the excitement with which 
 his companion pronounced these last words, did not 
 know what to answer. 
 
 Just then they reached the paved road which led 
 from Meudon castle to that of Versailles ; a carriage 
 was passing. 
 
 The ladies who were in it perceived the old man, 
 uttered an exclamation of surprise, and leaning out of 
 the window repeated : 
 
 " There is Jean Jacques there is Rousseau ! " 
 
 Then the carriage disappeared in the distance. 
 
 My father remained motionless, confounded and 
 amazed, his eyes wide open, and his hands clasped. 
 
 Rousseau, who had shuddered on hearing his name 
 spoken, turned toward him : 
 
 "You see," said he, with the bitter misanthropy 
 which his later misfortunes had produced in him, "Jean 
 Jacques cannot even hide himself ; he is an object of 
 curiosity to some, of malignity to others, and to all he is 
 a public thing, at which they point the finger. It would 
 signify less if he had only to submit to the impertinence 
 of the idle ; but, as soon as a man has had the misfortune 
 to make himself a name, he becomes public property. 
 Every one rakes into his life, relates his most trivial 
 actions, and insults his feelings; he becomes like those
 
 PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 
 
 105 
 
 walls, which every passer-by may deface with some 
 abusive writing. Perhaps you will say that I have my- 
 self encouraged this curiosity by publishing my ' Mem- 
 oirs.' But the world forced me to it. They looked 
 into my house through the blinds, and they slandered 
 me ; I have opened the doors and windows, so that they 
 should at least know me such as I am. Adieu, sir. 
 Whenever you wish to know the worth of fame, remem- 
 ber that you have seen Rousseau." 
 
 Nine o'clock. Ah ! now I understand my father's 
 story ! It contains the answer to one of the questions I 
 asked myself a week ago. Yes, I now feel that fame and 
 power are gifts that are dearly bought ; and that, when 
 they dazzle the soul, both of them are oftenest, as Ma- 
 dame de Stael says, but "un deuil eclatant de bonheur ! " * 
 
 * ['Tis better to be lowly born, 
 And range with humble livers in content, 
 Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, 
 And wear a golden sorrow. 
 
 Henry VIII., Act II., Scene 3.]
 
 JSJ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 
 
 August jd, nine o'clock P. M. 
 There are days when every- 
 "^ thing appears gloomy to us ; 
 
 the world is, like the sky, covered by a dark fog. 
 Nothing seems in its place ; we only see misery, im- 
 providence, and cruelty ; the worlds seems without 
 God, and given up to all the evils of chance. 
 
 Yesterday I was in this unhappy humour. After a 
 long walk in the faubourgs, I returned home, sad and 
 dispirited. 
 
 Everything I had seen seemed to accuse the civilisa- 
 tion of which we are so proud ! I had wandered into a 
 little by street, with which I was not acquainted, and I 
 found myself suddenly in the middle of those dreadful 
 abodes where the poor are born, languish, and die. I 
 looked at those decaying walls, which time has covered 
 with a foul leprosy ; those windows, from which dirty 
 rags hang out to dry ; those fetid gutters, which coil 
 along the fronts of the houses like venomous reptiles ! 
 I felt oppressed with grief, and hastened on.
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. IO / 
 
 A little further on I was stopped by the hearse of a 
 hospital ; a dead man, nailed down in his deal coffin, 
 was going to his last abode, without funeral pomp or 
 ceremony, and without followers. There was not here 
 even that last friend of the outcast the dog, which a 
 painter has introduced as the sole attendant at the 
 pauper's burial ! He whom they were preparing to 
 commit to the earth was going to the tomb, as he had 
 lived, alone ; doubtless no one would be aware of his 
 end. In this great battle of society, what signifies a 
 soldier the less ? 
 
 But what, then, is this human society, if one of its 
 members can thus disappear like a leaf carried away by 
 the wind ? 
 
 The hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance of 
 which old men, women, and children were quarrelling 
 for the remains of the coarse bread which the soldiers 
 had given them in charity ! Thus, beings like ourselves 
 daily wait in destitution on our compassion till we give 
 them leave to live ! Whole troops of outcasts, in ad- 
 dition to the trials imposed on all God's children, have 
 to endure the pangs of cold, hunger, and humiliation. 
 Unhappy human commonwealth ! where man is in a 
 worse condition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its 
 subterranean city ! 
 
 Ah ! what then avails our reason ? What is the good 
 of so many high faculties, if we are neither the wiser 
 nor the happier for them ? Which of us would not ex- 
 change his life of labour and trouble with that of the 
 birds of the air, to whom the whole world is a life of joy ?
 
 I0 8 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS, 
 
 How well I understand the complaint of Mao, in the 
 popular tales of the " Foyer Breton," who, when dying 
 of hunger and thirst, says, as he looks at the bull-finches 
 rifling the fruit-trees : 
 
 "Alas ! those birds are happier than Christians ; they 
 have no need of inns, or butchers, or bakers, or gar- 
 deners. God's heaven belongs to them, and earth 
 spreads a continual feast before them ! The tiny flies 
 are their game, ripe grass their corn-fields, and hips and 
 haws their store of fruit. They have the right of taking 
 everywhere, without paying or asking leave : thus comes 
 it that the little birds are happy, and sing all the live- 
 long day ! " 
 
 But the life of man in a natural state is like that of 
 the birds; he equally enjoys nature. "The earth 
 spreads a continual feast before him." What, then, 
 has he gained by that selfish and imperfect association 
 which forms a nation ? Would it not be better for 
 every one to return again to the fertile bosom of 
 Nature, and live there upon her bounty in peace and 
 liberty ? 
 
 August loth, four o'clock A. M. The dawn casts a red 
 glow on my bed-curtains ; the breeze brings in the 
 fragrance of the gardens below. Here I am again 
 leaning on my elbows by the window, inhaling the 
 freshness and gladness of this first wakening of the 
 day. 
 
 My eye always passes over the roofs filled with 
 flowers, warbling, and sunlight, with the same pleasure ; 
 but to-day it stops at the end of a buttress which
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 
 
 IC>9 
 
 separates our house from the next. The storms have 
 stripped the top of its plaster covering, and dust carried 
 by the wind has collected in the crevices, and, being 
 fixed there by the rain, has formed a sort of aerial ter- 
 race, where some green grass has sprung up. Among 
 it rises a stalk of wheat, which to-day is surmounted 
 by a sickly ear that droops its yellow head. 
 
 This poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest of 
 which will fall to the neighbouring sparrows, has car- 
 ried my thoughts to the rich crops which are now 
 falling beneath the sickle ; it has recalled to me the 
 beautiful walks I took as a child through my native 
 province, when the threshing-floors at the farm-houses 
 resounded from every part with the sound of the flail, 
 and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, came 
 in by all the roads. I still remember the songs of the 
 maidens, the cheerfulness of the old men, the open- 
 hearted merriment of the labourers. There was, at 
 that time, something in their looks both of pride and 
 feeling. The latter came from thankfulness to God, 
 the former from the sight of the harvest, the reward 
 of their labour. They felt indistinctly the grandeur and 
 the holiness of their part in the general work of the 
 world ; they looked with pride upon their mountains of 
 corn sheaves, and they seemed to say, Next to God, it is 
 we who feed the world ! 
 
 What a wonderful order there is in all human labour ! 
 While the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares 
 for every one his daily bread, the town artisan, far 
 away, weaves the stuff in which he is to be clothed ;
 
 HO AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 the miner seeks under ground the iron for his plough ; 
 the soldier defends him against the invader ; the judge 
 takes care that the law protects his fields ; the tax- 
 comptroller adjusts his private interests with those of 
 the public ; the merchant occupies himself in exchang- 
 ing his products with those of distant countries ; the 
 men of science and of art add every day a few horses 
 to this ideal team, which draws along the material 
 world, as steam impels the gigantic trains of our iron 
 roads ! Thus all unite together, all help one another ; 
 the toil of each one benefits himself and all the world ; 
 the work has been apportioned among the different 
 members of the whole of society by a tacit agreement. 
 If, in this apportionment, errors are committed, if cer- 
 tain individuals have not been employed according to 
 their capacities, these defects of detail diminish in the 
 sublime conception of the whole. The poorest man 
 included in this association has his place, his work, 
 his reason for being there ; each is something in the 
 whole. 
 
 There is nothing like this for man in the state of 
 nature. As he depends only upon himself, it is neces- 
 sary that he be sufficient for everything. All creation 
 is his property ; but he finds in it as many hindrances 
 as helps. He must surmount these obstacles with the 
 single strength that God has given him ; he cannot 
 reckon on any other aid than chance and opportunity. 
 No one reaps, manufactures, fights, or thinks for him; 
 he is nothing to any one. He is a unit multiplied by 
 the cipher of his own single powers ; while the civil-
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. \\\ 
 
 ized man is a unit multiplied by the powers of the whole 
 of society. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding this, the other day, disgusted 
 by the sight of some vices in detail, I cursed the latter, 
 and almost envied the life of the savage. ^ 
 
 One of the infirmities of our nature is always to mis- 
 take feeling for evidence, and to judge of the season by 
 a cloud or a ray of sunshine. 
 
 Was the misery, the sight of which made me regret 
 a savage life, really the effect of civilization ? Must 
 we accuse society of having created these evils, or ac- 
 knowledge, on the contrary, that it has alleviated 
 them ? Could the women and children who were re- 
 ceiving the coarse bread from the soldier hope in the 
 desert for more help or pity ? That dead man, whose 
 forsaken state I had deplored, had he not found, by the 
 cares of a hospital, a coffin and the humble grave where 
 he was about to rest? Alone, and far from men, he 
 would have died like the wild beast in his den, and 
 would now be serving as food for vultures! These 
 benefits of human society are shared, then, by the most 
 destitute. Whoever eats the bread that another has 
 reaped and kneaded, is under an obligation to his 
 brother, and cannot say he owes him nothing in return. 
 The poorest of us has received from society much more 
 than his own single strength would have permitted him 
 to wrest from nature. 
 
 But cannot society give us more ? Who doubts it ? 
 Errors have been committed in this distribution of tasks 
 and workers. Time will diminish the number of them ;
 
 H2 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 with new lights a better division will arise ; the elements 
 of society go on toward perfection, like everything else. 
 The difficulty is to know how to adapt ourselves to the 
 slow step of time, whose progress can never be forced 
 on without danger. 
 
 August i^.th, six o'clock A. M. My garret window rises 
 upon the roof like a massive watch-tower. The corners 
 are covered by large sheets of lead, which run into the 
 tiles ; the successive action of cold and heat has made 
 them rise, and so a crevice has been formed in an 
 angle on the right side. There a sparrow has built her 
 nest. 
 
 I have followed the progress of this aerial habitation 
 from the first day. I have seen the bird successively 
 bring the straw, moss, and wool designed for the con- 
 struction of her abode ; and I have admired the perse- 
 vering skill she expended in this difficult work. At first, 
 my new neighbour spent her days in fluttering over the 
 poplar in the garden, and in chirping along the gutters ; 
 a fine lady's life seemed the only one to suit her. Then, 
 all of a sudden, the necessity of preparing a shelter 
 for her brood transformed our idler into a worker ; 
 she no longer gave herself either rest or relaxation. 
 I saw her always either flying, fetching, or carrying ; 
 neither rain nor sun stopped her. A striking example 
 of the power of necessity ! We are not only indebted 
 to it for most of our talents, but for many of our 
 virtues ! 
 
 Is it not necessity which has given the people of 
 less favoured climates that constant activity which has
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. u$ 
 
 placed them so quickly at the head of nations ? As they 
 are deprived of most of the gifts of nature, they have 
 supplied them by their industry ; necessity has sharp- 
 ened their understanding, endurance awakened their 
 foresight. While elsewhere man, warmed by an ever 
 brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the earth, 
 was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst 
 of gifts he did not attempt to explore, here he was 
 forced by necessity to wrest his food from the ground, 
 to build habitations to defend himself from the intemper- 
 ance of the weather, and to warm his body by clothing 
 himself with the wool of animals. Work makes him both 
 more intelligent and more robust : disciplined by it, he 
 seems to mount higher on the ladder of creation, while 
 those more favored by nature remain on the step the 
 nearest to the brutes. 
 
 I made these reflections while looking at the bird, 
 whose instinct seemed to have become more acute since 
 she had been occupied in work. At last the nest was 
 finished ; she set up her household there, and I followed 
 her through all the phases of her new existence. 
 
 When she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones 
 were hatched, she fed them with the most attentive 
 care. The corner of my window had become a stage of 
 moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to 
 take lessons from. The little ones soon became great, 
 and this morning I have seen them take their first flight. 
 One of them, weaker than the others, was not able to 
 clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter. I 
 caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again
 
 114 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 on the tile in front of his house, but the mother has not 
 noticed him. Once freed from the cares of a family, 
 she has resumed her wandering life among the trees and 
 along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my 
 window, to take from her every excuse for fear ; in 
 vain the feeble little bird has called to her with plaint- 
 ive cries ; his bad mother has passed by singing and 
 fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. Once 
 only the father came near ; he looked at his off- 
 spring with contempt, and then disappeared never to 
 return ! 
 
 I crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but 
 he did not know how to peck it with his bill. I tried to 
 catch him, but he escaped into the forsaken nest. What 
 will become of him there, if his mother does not come 
 back ! 
 
 August 1 5th, six o'clock. This morning, on opening 
 my window, I found the little bird dying upon the 
 tiles ; his wounds showed me that he had been driven 
 from the nest by his unworthy mother. I tried in vain 
 to warm him again with my breath ; I felt the last pul- 
 sations of life ; his eyes were already closed, and his 
 wings hung down ! I placed him on the roof in a ray 
 of sunshine, and I closed my window. The struggle of 
 life against death has always something gloomy in it : it 
 is a warning to us. 
 
 Happily I hear some one in the passage ; without 
 doubt, it is my old neighbor; his conversation will dis- 
 tract my thoughts.
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. u^ 
 
 It was my portress. Excellent woman ! She wished 
 me to read a letter from her son the sailor, and begged 
 me to answer it for her. 
 
 I kept it, to copy it in my journal. Here it is: 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER : This is to tell you that I have 
 been very well ever since the last time, except that last 
 week I was nearly drowned with the boat, which would 
 have been a great loss, as there is not a better craft any- 
 where. 
 
 " A gust of wind capsized us ; and just as I came 
 up above water, I saw the captain sinking. I went 
 after him, as was my duty, and, after diving three 
 times, I brought him to the surface, which pleased 
 him much ; for when we were hoisted on board, and 
 he had recovered his senses, he threw his arms 
 round my neck, as he would have done to an of- 
 ficer. 
 
 " I do not hide from you, dear mother, that this has 
 delighted me. But it isn't all ; it seems that fishing up 
 the captain has reminded them that 1 had a good char- 
 acter, and they have just told me that I am promoted 
 to be a sailor of the first class! Directly I knew it I 
 cried out, ' My mother shall have coffee twice a day ! ' 
 And really, dear mother, there is nothing now to 
 hinder you, as I shall now have a larger allowance to 
 send you. 
 
 " I conclude by begging you to take care of 
 yourself if you wish to do me good ; for nothing
 
 Il6 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 makes me feel so well as to think that you want for 
 nothing. 
 
 " Your son, from the bottom of my heart, 
 
 " JACQUES." 
 
 This is the answer that the portress dictated to me : 
 
 " MY GOOD JACQUOT : It makes me very happy to 
 see that your heart is still as true as ever, and that you 
 will never shame those who have brought you up. I 
 need not tell you to take care of your life, because you 
 know it is the same as my own, and that without you, 
 dear child, I should wish for nothing but the grave ; but 
 we are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our 
 duty. 
 
 "Do not fear for my health, good Jacques; I was 
 never better ! I do not grow old at all, for fear of 
 making you unhappy. I want nothing, and I live like 
 a lady. I even had some money over this year, and 
 as my drawers shut very badly, I put it into the sav- 
 ings bank, where I have opened an account in your 
 name. So, when you come back, you will find your- 
 self with an income. I have also furnished your chest 
 with new linen, and I have knitted you three new sea 
 jackets. 
 
 " All your friends are well. Your cousin is just 
 dead, leaving his widow in difficulties. 1 gave her 
 your thirty francs remittance, and said that you had 
 sent it her ; and the poor woman remembers you day 
 and night in her prayers. So, you see, I have put that
 
 MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 
 
 I!/ 
 
 money in another sort of savings bank ; but there it is 
 our hearts which get the interest. 
 
 " Good-bye, dear Jacquot. Write to me often, and 
 always remember the good God, and your old mother, 
 
 " PHROSINE MILLOT." 
 
 Good son, and worthy mother ! how such examples 
 bring us back to a love for the human race ! In a fit 
 of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the fate of the 
 savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he ; but 
 impartial observation soon does justice to such para- 
 doxes. We find, on examination, that in the mixed 
 good and evil of human nature, the good so far abounds 
 that we are not in the habit of noticing it, while the 
 evil strikes us precisely on account of its being the 
 exception. If nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad as 
 to be without its compensation or its remedy. What 
 spiritual riches are there in the midst of the evils of 
 society ! how much does the moral world redeem the 
 material ! 
 
 That which will ever distinguish man from the rest 
 of creation is his power of deliberate affection and of 
 enduring self-sacrifice. The mother who took care of 
 her brood in the corner of my window devoted to them 
 the necessary time for accomplishing the laws which 
 insure the preservation of her kind ; but she obeyed an 
 instinct, and not a rational choice. When she had ac- 
 complished the mission appointed her by Providence, 
 she cast off the duty as we get rid of a burden, and 
 she returned again to her selfish liberty. The other
 
 U 8 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 mother, on the contrary, will go on with her task as 
 long as God shall leave her here below : the life of 
 her son will still remain, so to speak, joined to her 
 own ; and when she disappears from the earth she will 
 leave there that part of herself. 
 
 Thus, the affections make for our species an exist- 
 ence separate from all the rest of creation. Thanks to 
 them, we enjoy a sort of terrestrial immortality ; and 
 if other beings succeed one another, man alone perpetu- 
 ates himself.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FAMILY OF 
 MICHAEL AROUT. 
 
 September i^th, eight o'clock. This morning, while I 
 was arranging my books, Mother Genevieve came in, 
 and brought me the basket of fruit 1 buy of her every 
 Sunday. For nearly twenty years that I have lived in 
 this quarter I have dealt in her little fruit-shop. Per- 
 haps I should be better served elsewhere, but Mother 
 Genevieve has but little custom ; to leave her would do 
 her harm, and cause her unnecessary pain. It seems to 
 me that the length of our acquaintance has made me 
 incur a sort of tacit obligation to her ; my patronage 
 has become her property. 
 
 She has put the basket upon my table, and as I 
 wanted her husband, who is a joiner, to add some 
 shelves to my bookcase, she has gone down stairs again 
 immediately to send him to me. 
 
 At first I did not notice either her looks or the 
 sound of her voice : but, now that I recall them, it
 
 I2O AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 seems to me that she was not as jovial as usual. 
 Can Mother Genevieve be in trouble about any- 
 thing ? 
 
 Poor woman ! All her best years were subject to 
 such bitter trials, that she might think she had received 
 her full share already. Were I to live a hundred years 
 I should never forget the circumstances which first 
 made her known to me, and which obtained her my 
 respect. 
 
 It was at the time of my first settling in the fau- 
 bourg. I had noticed her empty fruit-shop, which no- 
 body came into, and, being attracted by its forsaken 
 appearance, I made my little purchases in it. I have 
 always instinctively preferred the poor shops ; there is 
 less choice in them, but it seems to me that my pur- 
 chase is a sign of sympathy with a brother in poverty. 
 These little dealings are almost always an anchor of 
 hope to those whose very existence is in peril the only 
 means by which some orphan gains a livelihood. There 
 the aim of the tradesman is not to enrich himself, but 
 to live! The purchase you make of him is more than 
 an exchange it is a good action. 
 
 Mother Genevieve at that time was still young, but 
 had already lost that fresh bloom of youth, which suf- 
 fering causes to wither so soon among the poor. Her 
 husband, a clever joiner, gradually left off working to 
 become, according to the picturesque expression of the 
 workshops, a worshipper of Saint Monday. The wages 
 of the week, which was always reduced to two or three 
 working days, were completely dedicated by him to the
 
 STATE NOR*-. M-' M 'OGL, 
 
 B -:- OAU
 
 I heard a sound of quarrelling in the back shop.
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. \ 2 \ 
 
 worship of this god of the Barriers,* and Genevieve 
 was obliged herself to provide for all the wants of the 
 household. 
 
 One evening, when I went to make some trifling pur- 
 chases of her, I heard a sound of quarrelling in the back 
 shop. There were the voices of several women, among 
 which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by 
 sobs. On looking further in, I perceived the fruit- 
 woman with a child in her arms, and kissing it, while a 
 country nurse seemed to be claiming her wages from 
 her. The poor woman, who without doubt had ex- 
 hausted every explanation and every excuse, was crying 
 in silence, and one of her neighbours was trying in vain 
 to appease the countrywoman. Excited by that love of 
 money which the evils of a hard peasant life but too well 
 excuse, and disappointed by the refusal of her expected 
 wages, the nurse was launching forth in recriminations, 
 threats, and abuse. In spite of myself, I listened to the 
 quarrel, not daring to interfere, and not thinking of going 
 away, when Michael Arout appeared at the shop-door. 
 
 The joiner had just come from the Barrier, where 
 he had passed part of the day at the public house. His 
 blouse, without a belt, and untied at the throat, showed 
 none of the noble stains of work : in his hand he held 
 his cap, which he had just picked up out of the mud ; 
 his hair was in disorder, his eye fixed, and the pallor of 
 drunkenness in his face. He came reeling in, looked 
 wildly around him, and called Genevieve. 
 
 * The cheap wine-shops are outside the Barriers, to avoid the octroi, or 
 municipal excise.
 
 122 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 She heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed into 
 the shop ; but at the sight of the miserable man, who 
 was trying in vain to steady himself, she pressed the 
 child in her arms, and bent over it with tears. 
 
 The countrywoman and the neighbour had followed 
 her. 
 
 " Come ! come ! do you intend to pay me, after all ? " 
 cried the former in a rage. 
 
 " Ask the master for the money," ironically answered 
 the woman from the next door, pointing to the joiner, 
 who had just fallen against the counter. 
 
 The countrywoman looked at him. 
 
 " Ah ! he is the father," returned she. " Well, what 
 idle beggars ! not to have a penny to pay honest people, 
 and get tipsy with wine in that way." 
 
 The drunkard raised his head. 
 
 " What ! what ! " stammered he ; " who is it that 
 talks of wine ? I've had nothing but brandy ! But I 
 am going back again to get some wine ! Wife, give me 
 your money ; there are some friends waiting for me at 
 the Ptre la Tuille." 
 
 Genevieve did not answer : he went round the 
 counter, opened the till, and began to rummage in it. 
 
 " You see where the money of the house goes ! " ob- 
 served the neighbour to the countrywoman ; " how can 
 the poor unhappy woman pay you when he takes all?" 
 
 "Is that my fault?" replied the nurse angrily. 
 " They owe it to me, and somehow or other they must 
 pay me ! " 
 
 And letting loose her tongue, as those women out of
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL A ROUT. 
 
 123 
 
 the country do, she began relating- at length all the care 
 she had taken of the child, and all the expense it had 
 been to her. In proportion as she recalled all she had 
 done, her words seemed to convince her more than ever 
 of her rights, and to increase her anger. The poor 
 mother, who no doubt feared that her violence would 
 frighten the child, returned into the back shop, and put 
 it into its cradle. 
 
 Whether it is that the countrywoman saw in this act 
 a determination to escape her claims, or that she was 
 blinded by passion, I cannot say ; but she rushed into 
 the next room, where I heard the sounds of quarrelling, 
 with which the cries of the child were soon mingled. 
 The joiner, who was still rummaging in the till, was 
 startled, and raised his head. 
 
 At the same moment Genevieve appeared at the 
 door, holding in her arms the baby that the country- 
 woman was trvinor to tear from her. She ran toward 
 
 J o 
 
 the counter, and throwing herself behind her husband, 
 cried : 
 
 " Michael, defend your son ! " 
 
 The drunken man quickly stood up erect, like one 
 who awakes with a start. 
 
 " My son ! " stammered he ; " what son ? " 
 His looks fell upon the child ; a vague ray of intelli- 
 gence passed over his features. 
 
 " Robert," resumed he ; " it is Robert ! " 
 He tried to steady himself on his feet, that he might 
 take the baby, but he tottered. The nurse approached 
 him in a rage.
 
 124 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 " My money, or I shall take the child away ! " cried 
 she. " It is I who have fed and brought it up : if you 
 don't pay me for what has made it live, it ought to be 
 the same to you as if it were dead. I shall not go until 
 I have my due or the baby." 
 
 " And what would you do with him ? " murmured 
 Genevieve, pressing Robert against her bosom. 
 
 " Take it to the Foundling ! " replied the coun- 
 trywoman harshly; " the hospital is a better mother 
 than you are, for it pays for the food of its little 
 ones." 
 
 At the word " Foundling," Genevieve had exclaimed 
 aloud in horror. With her arms wound round her son, 
 whose head she hid in her bosom, and her two hands 
 spread over him, she had retreated to the wall, and re- 
 mained with her back against it, like a lioness defending 
 her young ones. The neighbour and I contemplated 
 this scene, without knowing how we could interfere. 
 As for Michael, he looked at us by turns, making a 
 visible effort to comprehend it all. When his eye rested 
 upon Genevieve and the child, it lit up with a gleam of 
 pleasure ; but when he turned toward us, he again 
 became stupid and hesitating. 
 
 At last, apparently making a prodigious effort, he 
 cried out, " Wait ! " 
 
 And, going to a tub full of water, he plunged his 
 face into it several times. 
 
 Every eye was turned upon him ; the countrywoman 
 herself seemed astonished. At length he raised his 
 dripping head. This ablution had partly dispelled his
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. I2 5 
 
 drunkenness ; he looked at us for a moment, then he 
 turned to Genevieve, and his face brightened up. 
 
 " Robert ! " cried he, going up to the child, and 
 taking him in his arms. "Ah ! give him me, wife ; I 
 must look at him." 
 
 The mother seemed to give up his son to him with 
 reluctance, and stayed before him with her arms ex- 
 tended, as if she feared the child would have a fall. 
 The nurse began again in her turn to speak, and re- 
 newed her claims, this time threatening to appeal to law. 
 At first Michael listened to her attentively, and when he 
 comprehended her meaning, he gave the child back to 
 its mother. 
 
 " How much do we owe you? " asked he. 
 
 The countrywoman began to reckon up the different 
 expenses, which amounted to nearly thirty francs. The 
 joiner felt to the bottom of his pockets, but could find 
 nothing. His forehead became contracted by frowns ; 
 low curses began to escape him. All of a sudden he 
 rummaged in his breast, drew forth a large watch, and 
 holding it up above his head 
 
 " Here it is here's your money ! " cried he with a 
 joyful laugh ; " a watch, number one ! I always said it 
 would keep for a drink on a dry day ; but it is not I 
 who will drink it, but the young one. Ah ! ah ! ah ! 
 go and sell it for me, neighbour, and if that is not 
 enough, I have my earrings. Eh ! Genevieve, take 
 them off for me ; the earrings will square all ! They 
 shall not say you have been disgraced on account of 
 the child no, not even if I must pledge a bit of my
 
 126 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 flesh ! My watch, my earrings, and my ring get rid of 
 all of them for me at the goldsmith's ; pay the woman, 
 and let the little fool go to sleep. Give him me, Gene- 
 vieve ; I will put him to bed." 
 
 And, taking the baby from the arms of his mother, 
 he carried him with a firm step to his cradle. 
 
 It was easy to perceive the change which took place 
 in Michael from this day. He cut all his old drinking 
 acquaintances. He went early every morning to his 
 work, and returned regularly in the evening to finish 
 the day with Genevieve and Robert. Very soon he 
 would not leave them at all, and he hired a place near 
 the fruit-shop, and worked in it on his own account. 
 
 They would soon have been able to live in comfort, 
 had it not been for the expenses which the child re- 
 quired. Everything was given up to his education. 
 He had gone through the regular school training, had 
 studied mathematics, drawing, and the carpenter's trade, 
 and had only begun to work a few months ago. Till 
 now, they had been exhausting every resource which 
 their laborious industry could provide to push him for- 
 ward in his business ; but, happily, all these exertions 
 had not proved useless : the seed had brought forth its 
 fruits, and the days of harvest were close by. 
 
 While I was thus recalling these remembrances to 
 my mind, Michael had come in, and was occupied in 
 fixing shelves where they were wanted. 
 
 During the time I was writing the notes of my jour- 
 nal, I was also scrutinizing the joiner. 
 
 The excesses of his youth and the labour of his man-
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL A ROUT. 127 
 
 hood have deeply marked his face ; his hair is thin and 
 grey, his shoulders stooping, his legs shrunken and 
 slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in his whole 
 being. His very features have an expression of sorrow 
 and despondency. He answered my questions by 
 monosyllables, and like a man who wishes to avoid con- 
 versation. From whence is this dejection, when one 
 would think he had all he could wish for ? I should 
 like to know ! 
 
 Ten o'clock. Michael is just gone down-stairs to look 
 for a tool he has forgotten. I have at last succeeded in 
 drawing from him the secret of his and Genevieve's 
 sorrow. Their son Robert is the cause of it ! 
 
 Not that he has turned out ill after all their care 
 not that he is idle or dissipated ; but both were in hopes 
 he would never leave them any more. The presence of 
 the young man was to have renewed and made glad 
 their lives once more ; his mother counted the days, his 
 father prepared everything to receive their dear asso- 
 ciate in their toils ; and at the moment when they were 
 thus about to be repaid for all their sacrifices, Robert 
 had suddenly informed them that he had just engaged 
 himself to a contractor at Versailles. 
 
 Every remonstrance and every prayer were useless ; 
 he brought forward the necessity of initiating himself 
 into all the details of an important contract, the facilities 
 he should have in his new position of improving himself 
 in his trade, and the hopes he had of turning his knowl- 
 edge to advantage. At last, when his mother, having 
 come to the end of her arguments, began to cry, he
 
 I2 8 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 hastily kissed her, and went away that he might avoid 
 any further remonstrances. 
 
 He had been absent a year, and there was nothing to 
 give them hopes of his return. His parents hardly saw 
 him once a month, and then he only stayed a few 
 moments with them. 
 
 " I have been punished where I had hoped to be re- 
 warded," Michael said to me just now. " I had wished 
 for a saving and industrious son, and God has given 
 me an ambitious and avaricious one ! I had always 
 said to myself that when once he was grown up we 
 should have him always with us, to recall our youth 
 and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always 
 thinking of getting him married, and having children 
 again to care for. You know women always will busy 
 themselves about others. As for me, I thought of him 
 working near my bench, and singing his now songs ; for 
 he has learnt music, and is one of the best singers at the 
 Orpheon. A dream, sir, truly ! Directly the bird was 
 fledged, he took to flight, and remembers neither father 
 nor mother. Yesterday, for instance, was the day we 
 expected him ; he should have come to supper with us. 
 No Robert to-day either! He has had some plan to 
 finish, or some bargain to arrange, and his old parents 
 are put down last in the accounts, after the customers 
 and the joiner's work. Ah ! if I could have guessed how 
 it would have turned out ! Fool ! to have sacrificed 
 my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to 
 the education of a thankless son ! Was it for this I took 
 the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my
 
 THE PAMILY OF MICHAEL A ROUT. 
 
 I2 9 
 
 friends, to become an example to the neighbourhood ? 
 The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. 
 Oh ! if I had to begin again ! No, no ! you see women 
 and children are our bane. They soften our hearts ; 
 they lead us a life of hope and affection ; we pass a 
 quarter of our lives in fostering the growth of a grain 
 of corn which is to be everything to us in our old age, 
 and when the harvest-time comes good night, the ear 
 is empty ! " 
 
 While he was speaking, Michael's voice became 
 hoarse, his eye fierce, and his lips quivered. I wished 
 to answer him, but I could only think of commonplace 
 consolations, and I remained silent. The joiner pre- 
 tended he wanted a tool, and left me. 
 
 Poor father ! Ah ! I know those moments of temp- 
 tation when virtue has failed to reward us, and we 
 regret having obeyed her ! Who has not felt this weak- 
 ness in hours of trial, and who has not uttered, at least 
 once, the mournful exclamation of Brutus? 
 
 But if virtue is only a word, what is there then in life 
 which is true and real ? No, I will not believe that 
 goodness is in vain! It does not always give the hap- 
 piness we had hoped for, but it brings some other. In 
 the world everything is ruled by order, and has its 
 proper and necessary consequences, and virtue can not 
 be the sole exception to the general law. If it had been 
 prejudicial to those who practice it, experience would 
 have avenged them ; but experience has, on the con- 
 trary, made it more universal and more holy. We only 
 accuse it of being a faithless debtor because we demand
 
 130 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 an immediate payment, and one apparent to our senses. 
 We always consider life as a fairy tale, in which every 
 good action must be rewarded by a visible wonder. 
 We do not accept as payment a peaceful conscience, 
 self-content, or a good name among men treasures that 
 are more precious than any other, but the value of which 
 we do not feel till after we have lost them ! 
 
 Michael is come back, and returned to his work. 
 His son has not yet arrived ! 
 
 By telling me of his hopes and his grievous disap- 
 pointments, he became excited ; he unceasingly went 
 over again the same subject, always adding something 
 to his griefs, He has just wound up his confidential 
 discourse by speaking to me of a joiner's business which 
 he had hoped to buy, and work to good account with 
 Robert's help. The present owner had made a fortune 
 by it, and, after thirty years of business, he was thinking 
 of retiring to one of the ornamental cottages in the 
 outskirts of the city, a usual retreat for the frugal and 
 successful working-man. Michael had not indeed the 
 two thousand francs which must be paid down ; but 
 perhaps he could have persuaded Master Benoit to 
 wait. Robert's presence would have been a security for 
 him, for the young man could not fail to insure the 
 prosperity of a workshop ; besides science and skill, he 
 had the power of invention and bringing to perfection. 
 His father had discovered among his drawings a new 
 plan for a staircase, which had occupied his thoughts 
 for a long time ; and he even suspected him of having 
 engaged himself to the Versailles contractor for the
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AKOUT. 131 
 
 very purpose of executing it. The youth was torment- 
 ed by this spirit of invention, which took possession of 
 all his thoughts, and, while devoting his mind to study, 
 he had no time to listen to his feelings. 
 
 Michael told me all this with a mixed feeling of 
 pride and vexation. I saw he was proud of the son he 
 was abusing, and that his very pride made him more 
 sensible of that son's neglect. 
 
 Six o'clock P. M. I have just finished a happy day. 
 How many events have happened within a few hours, 
 and what a change for Genevieve and Michael ! 
 
 He had just finished fixing the shelves, and tell- 
 ing me of his son, while I laid the cloth for my break- 
 fast. 
 
 Suddenly we heard hurried steps in the passage, the 
 door opened, and Genevieve entered with Robert. 
 
 The joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but he re- 
 pressed it immediately, as if he wished to keep up the 
 appearance of displeasure. 
 
 The young man did not appear to notice it, but 
 threw himself into his arms in an open-hearted manner, 
 which surprised me. Genevieve, whose face shone with 
 happiness, seemed to wish to speak, and to restrain her- 
 self with difficulty. 
 
 I told Robert I was glad to see him, and he answered 
 me with ease and civility. 
 
 " I expected you yesterday," said Michael Arout 
 rather drily. 
 
 " Forgive me, father," replied the young workman, 
 " but I had business at St. Germain's. I was not able to
 
 !32 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 come back till it was very late, and then the master 
 kept me." 
 
 The joiner looked at his son sideways, and then took 
 up his hammer again. 
 
 "All right," muttered he in a grumbling tone ; " when 
 we are with other people we must do as they wish ; but 
 there are some who would like better to eat brown bread 
 with their own knife than partridges with the silver fork 
 of a master." 
 
 " And I am one of those, father," replied Robert 
 merrily ; " but, as the proverb says, you must slwll the 
 peas before you can cat tJicm. It was necessary that I 
 should first work in a great workshop 
 
 " To go on with your plan of the staircase," inter- 
 rupted Michael, ironically. 
 
 " You must now say M. Raymond's plan, father," 
 replied Robert, smiling. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I have sold it to him." 
 
 The joiner, who was planing a board, turned round 
 quickly. 
 
 " Sold it ! " cried he, with sparkling eyes. 
 
 " For the reason that I was not rich enough to give 
 it him." 
 
 Michael threw down the board and tool. 
 
 " There he is again ! " resumed, he angrily ; " his 
 good genius puts an idea into his head which would 
 have made him known, and he goes and sells it to a rich 
 man, who will take the honour of it himself." 
 
 " Well, what harm is there done?" asked Genevieve.
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL A ROUT. ^3 
 
 " What harm ! " cried the joiner, in a passion. " You 
 understand nothing about it you are a woman ; but he 
 he knows well that a true workman never gives up 
 his own inventions for money, no more than a soldier 
 would give up his cross. That is his glory ; he is bound 
 to keep it for the honour it does him ! Ah ! thunder! if 
 I had ever made a discovery, rather than put it up at 
 auction I would have sold one of my eyes ! Don't you 
 see that a new invention is like a child to a workman ? 
 He takes care of it, he brings it up, he makes a way 
 for it in the world, and it is only poor creatures who 
 sell it." 
 
 Robert coloured a little. 
 
 " You will think differently, father," said he, " when 
 you know why I sold my plan." 
 
 " Yes, and you will thank him for it," added Gen- 
 evieve, who could no longer keep silence. 
 
 " Never ! " replied Michael. 
 
 " But, wretched man ! " cried she, " he only sold it 
 for our sakes ! " 
 
 The joiner looked at his wife and son with aston- 
 ishment. It was necessary to come to an explanation. 
 The latter related how he had entered into a negotia- 
 tion with Master Benoit, who had positively refused to 
 sell his business unless one half of the two thousand 
 francs were first paid clown. It was in the hopes of ob- 
 taining this sum that he had gone to work with the 
 contractor at Versailles : he had had an opportunity 
 of trying his invention, and of finding a purchaser. 
 Thanks to the moncv he received for it, he had just con-
 
 134 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 eluded the bargain with Benoit, and had brought his 
 father the key of the new work-yard. 
 
 This explanation was given by the young workman 
 with so much modesty and simplicity that I was quite 
 affected by it. Genevieve cried ; Michael pressed his 
 son to his heart, and in a long embrace he seemed to ask 
 his pardon for having unjustly accused him. 
 
 All was now explained with honour to Robert. 
 The conduct which his parents had ascribed to indif- 
 ference really sprang from affection ; he had neither 
 obeyed the voice of ambition, nor of avarice, nor even 
 the nobler inspiration of inventive genius ; his whole 
 motive and single aim had been the happiness of Gen- 
 evieve and Michael. The day for proving his gratitude 
 had come, and he had returned them sacrifice for sac- 
 rifice ! 
 
 After the explanations and exclamations of joy were 
 over, all three were about to leave me ; but the cloth 
 being laid, I added three more places, and kept them to 
 breakfast. 
 
 The meal was prolonged : the fare was only toler- 
 able ; but the overflowings of affection made it delicious. 
 Never had I better understood the unspeakable charm 
 of family love. What calm enjoyment in that happiness 
 which is always shared with others; in that community 
 of interests which unites such various feelings ; in that 
 association of existences which forms one single being of 
 so many ! What is man without those home affections, 
 which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in the earth, 
 and permit him to imbibe all the juices of life ? Energy,
 
 THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL A ROUT. 
 
 '35 
 
 happiness does it not all come from them ? Without 
 iamily life where would man learn to love, to associate, 
 to deny himself? A community in little, is it not this 
 which teaches us how to live in the great one ? Such is 
 the holiness of home, that to express our relation with 
 God, we have been obliged to borrow the words in- 
 vented for our family life. Men have named themselves 
 the sons of a heavenly FatJicr ! 
 
 Ah ! let us carefully preserve these chains of do- 
 mestic union ; do not let us unbind the human sheaf, 
 and scatter its ears to all the caprices of chance and of 
 the winds ; but let us rather enlarge this holy law ; let 
 us carry the principles and the habits of home beyond 
 its bounds; and, if it may be, let us realise the prayer 
 of the Apostle of the Gentiles when he exclaimed to 
 the new-born children of Christ: " Be ye like-minded, 
 having the same love, being of one accord, of one 
 mind." * 
 
 * Philippians, ii, 2.
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 October I2th, seven o'clock A. M. The nights are al- 
 ready become cold and long ; the sun, shining through 
 my curtains, no more wakens me long before the hour 
 for work ; and even when my eyes are open, the pleas- 
 ant warmth of the bed keeps me fast under my counter- 
 pane. Every morning there begins a long argument 
 between my activity and my indolence ; and, snugly 
 wrapped up to the eyes, I wait like the Gascon, until 
 they have succeeded in coming to an agreement. 
 
 This morning, however, a light, which shone from 
 my door upon my pillow, awoke me earlier than usual. 
 In vain I turned on my side ; the persevering light, like 
 a victorious enemy, pursued me into every position. 
 At last, quite out of patience, I sat up and hurled my 
 nightcap to the foot of the bed ! 
 
 (I will observe, by way of parenthesis, that the 
 various evolutions of this pacific head-gear seem to 
 have been, from the remotest time, symbols of the vehe- 
 ment emotions of the mind ; for our language has bor-
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 137 
 
 rowed its most common images from them. Thus we 
 say : Mettre son bonnet de tr avers ; jetcr son bonnet par- 
 dcssus les moulins ; avoir la tete pres du bonnet, etc.*) 
 
 But be this as it may, I got up in a very bad 
 humour, grumbling at my new neighbour, who took 
 it into his head to be wakeful when I wished to sleep. 
 We are all made thus ; we do not understand that 
 others may live on their own account. Each one of us 
 is like the earth according to the old system of Ptolemy, 
 and thinks he can have the whole universe revolve 
 round himself. On this point, to make use of the meta- 
 phor alluded to : Tons les homines ont la tcte dans le meme 
 bonnct.\ 
 
 I had for the time being,, as I have already said, 
 thrown mine to the other end of my bed ; and I slowly 
 disengaged my legs from the warm bed-clothes, while 
 making a host of evil reflections upon the inconvenience 
 of having neighbours. 
 
 For more than a month I had not had to complain 
 of those whom chance had given me ; most of them 
 only came in to sleep, and went away again on rising. 
 I was almost always alone on this top story alone with 
 the clouds and the sparrows! 
 
 But at Paris nothing lasts : the current of life carries 
 us along, like the seaweed torn from the rock : the 
 houses are vessels which take mere passengers. I low 
 many different faces have I already seen pass along the 
 
 * To be in a bad humour. 
 
 To brave the opinions of the world. 
 To be angry about a trifle, 
 f Said of those who are of the same opinions and tastes.
 
 138 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 landing-place belonging to our attics ! How many com- 
 panions of a few days have disappeared forever ! Some 
 are lost in that medley of the living which whirls con- 
 tinually under the scourge of necessity, and others in 
 that resting-place of the dead, who sleep under the hand 
 of God ! 
 
 Peter the bookbinder is one of these last. Wrapped 
 up in selfishness, he lived alone and friendless, and he 
 died as he had lived. His loss was neither mourned by 
 any one, nor disarranged anything in the world ; there 
 was merely a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an 
 attic emptied in our house. 
 
 It is the same which my new neighbour has inhab- 
 ited for the last few days. 
 
 To say truly (now that I am quite awake, and my 
 ill humour is gone to join my nightcap) to say truly, 
 this new neighbour, although rising earlier than suits 
 my idleness, is not the less a very good man : he 
 carries his misfortunes, as few know how to carry 
 their good fortunes, with cheerfulness and modera- 
 tion. 
 
 But fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chaufour is 
 but the wreck of a man. In the place of one of his 
 arms hangs an empty sleeve ; his left leg is made by 
 the turner, and he drags the right along with difficulty ; 
 but above these ruins rises a calm and happy face. 
 While looking upon his countenance, radiant with a 
 serene energy, while listening to his voice, the tone of 
 which has, so to speak, the accent of goodness, we see 
 that the soul has remained entire in the half-destroyed
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 covering. The fortress is a little damaged, as Father 
 Chaufour says, but the garrison is quite hearty. 
 
 Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, 
 the more I reproach myself for the sort of malediction 
 I bestowed on him when I awoke. 
 
 We are generally too indulgent in our secret wrongs 
 toward our neighbour. All ill will which does not pass 
 the region of thought seems innocent to us, and, with 
 our clumsy justice, we excuse without examination the 
 sin which does not betray itself by action ! 
 
 But are we then only bound to others by the en- 
 forcement of laws? Besides these external relations, is 
 there not a real relation of feeling between men ? Do 
 we not owe to all those who live under the same heaven 
 as ourselves the aid not only of our acts but of our pur- 
 poses ? Ought not every human life to be to us like a 
 vessel that we accompany with our prayers for a happy 
 voyage? It is not enough that men do not harm one 
 another ; they must also help and love one another ! 
 The papal benediction, Urbi et orbi ! should be the con- 
 stant cry from all hearts. To condemn him who does 
 not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a passing 
 thought, is to break the great law, that which has estab- 
 lished the union of souls here below, and to which 
 Christ has given the sweet name of cJiarity. 
 
 These thoughts came into my mind as I finished 
 dressing, and 1 said to myself that Father Chaufour had 
 a right to a reparation from me. To make amends for 
 the feeling of ill will I had against him just now, I 
 owed him some explicit proof of sympathy. 1 heard
 
 140 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 him humming a tune in his room ; he was at work, and 
 I determined that I would make the first neighbourly 
 call. 
 
 Eight o'clock P. M. I found Father Chaufour at a 
 table lighted by a little smoky lamp, without a fire, 
 although it is already cold, and making large paste- 
 board boxes ; he was humming a popular song in a low 
 tone. I had hardly entered the room when he uttered 
 an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. 
 
 " Eh ! is it you, neighbour ? Come in, then ! I did 
 not think you got up so early, so I put a damper on my 
 music ; I was afraid of waking you." 
 
 Excellent man ! while I was sending him to the devil 
 he was putting himself out of his way for me ! 
 
 This thought touched me, and I paid my compli- 
 ments on his having become my neighbour with a 
 warmth which opened his heart. 
 
 " Faith ! you seem to me to have the look of a good 
 Christian," said he in a voice of soldierlike cordiality, 
 and shaking me by the hand. " I do not like those peo- 
 ple who look on a landing-place as a frontier line, and 
 treat their neighbours as if they were Cossacks. When 
 men snuff the same air, and speak the same lingo, they 
 are not meant to turn their backs to each other. Sit 
 down there, neighbour ; I don't mean to order you ; 
 only take care of the stool. It has but three legs, and 
 we must put good will in the place of the fourth." 
 
 " It seems that that is a treasure which there is no 
 want of here," I observed. 
 
 " Good will ! " repeated Chaufour ; " that is all my
 
 OUR COUNTRY. l ^ l 
 
 mother left me, and I take it no son has received a bet- 
 ter inheritance. Therefore they used to call me Mr. 
 Content in the batteries." 
 
 " You are a soldier, then ? " 
 
 " I served in the Third Artillery under the Re- 
 public, and afterward in the Guard, through all the 
 commotions. I was at Jemappes and at Waterloo ; so 
 I was at the christening and at the burial of our glory, 
 as one may say ! " 
 
 I looked at him with astonishment. 
 
 " And how old were you, then, at Jemappes ? " 
 asked I. 
 
 " Somewhere about fifteen," said he. 
 
 " How came you to think of being a soldier so early?" 
 
 " I did not really think about it. I then worked at 
 toy making, and never dreamt that France could ask 
 me for anything else than to make her draught-boards, 
 shuttlecocks, and cups and balls. But I had an old 
 uncle at Vincennes whom I went to see from time to 
 time a Fontenoy veteran in the same rank of life as 
 myself, but with ability enough to have risen to that of 
 a marshal. Unluckily, in those days there was no way 
 for common people to get on. My uncle, whose serv- 
 ices would have got him made a prince under the other, 
 had then retired with the mere rank of sub-lieutenant. 
 But you should have seen him in his uniform, his cross 
 of St. Louis, his wooden leg, his white moustaches, and 
 his noble countenance. You would have said he was a 
 portrait of one of those old heroes in powdered hair 
 which are at Versailles!
 
 142 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 " Every time I visited him, he said something which 
 remained fixed in my memory. But one day I found 
 him quite grave. 
 
 " ' Jerome/ said he, ' do you know what is going on 
 on the frontier? ' 
 
 " ' No, lieutenant,' replied I. 
 
 " ' Well,' resumed he, ' our country is in danger ! ' 
 
 " I did not well understand him, and yet it seemed 
 something to me. 
 
 " ' Perhaps you have never thought what your coun- 
 try means,' continued he, placing his hand on my shoul- 
 der. ' It is all that surrounds you, all that has brought 
 you up and fed you, all that you have loved ! This 
 ground that you see, these houses, these trees, those 
 girls who go along there laughing this is your coun- 
 try ! The laws which protect you, the bread which 
 pays for your work, the words you interchange with 
 others, the joy and grief which come to you from the 
 men and things among which you live this is your 
 country ! The little room where you used to see your 
 mother, the remembrances she has left you, the earth 
 where she rests this is your country ! You see it, you 
 breathe it, everywhere! Think to yourself, my son, of 
 your rights and your duties, your affections and your 
 wants, your past and your present blessings ; write 
 them all under a single name and that name will be 
 your country ! ' 
 
 " I was trembling with emotion, and great tears were 
 in my eyes. 
 
 "'Ah! I understand,' cried I. 'It is our home in
 
 OUR COUNTRY. j^ 
 
 large ; it is that part of the world where God has 
 placed our body and our soul.' 
 
 " ' You are right, Jerome,' continued the old soldier; 
 ' so you comprehend also what we owe it.' 
 
 "'Truly,' resumed I, ' we owe it all that we are. It 
 is a question of love.' 
 
 "'And of honesty, mv son,' concluded he. 'The 
 member of a family who does not contribute his share 
 of work and of happiness fails in his duty, and is a bad 
 kinsman ; the member of a partnership who does not 
 enrich it with all his might, with all his courage, and 
 with all his heart, defrauds it of what belongs to it, and 
 is a dishonest man. It is the same with him who en- 
 joys the advantages of having a country, and does not 
 accept the burdens of it ; he forfeits his honour, and is 
 a bad citizen ! ' 
 
 " ' And what must one do, lieutenant, to be a good 
 citizen ? ' asked I. 
 
 " ' Do for your country what you would do for your 
 father and mother,' said he. 
 
 " I did not answer at the moment ; my heart was 
 swelling, and the blood boiling in my veins : but on re- 
 turning along the road, my uncle's words were, so to 
 speak, written up before my eyes. I repeated, ' Do for 
 your country what you would do for your father and 
 mother.' And my country is in danger ; an enemy at- 
 tacks it, while I I turn cups and balls ! 
 
 " This thought tormented me so much all night, that 
 the next day I returned to Vincennes to announce to 
 the lieutenant that I had just enlisted, and was going off
 
 144 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 to the frontiers. The brave man pressed me upon his 
 cross of St. Louis, and I went away as proud as an am- 
 bassador. 
 
 " That is how, neighbour, I became a volunteer under 
 the Republic before I had cut my wisdom teeth." 
 
 All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of 
 him who looks upon an accomplished duty neither as a 
 merit nor a grievance. 
 
 While he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, 
 not on account of himself, but of the general subject. 
 Evidently that which occupied him in the drama of life 
 was not his own part, but the drama itself. 
 
 This sort of disinterestedness touched me. I pro- 
 longed my visit, and showed myself as frank as possible, 
 in order to win his confidence in return. In an hour's 
 time he knew my position and my habits; I was on the 
 footing of an old acquaintance. 
 
 I even confessed the ill humour the light of his lamp 
 put me into a short time before. He took what I said 
 with the touching cheerfulness which comes from a 
 heart in the right place, and which looks upon every- 
 thing on the good side. He neither spoke to me of the 
 necessity which obliged him to work while I could 
 sleep, nor of the deprivations of the old soldier com- 
 pared to the luxury of the young clerk ; he only struck 
 his forehead, accused himself of thoughtlessness, and 
 promised to put list round his door ! 
 
 O great and beautiful soul ! with whom nothing 
 turns to bitterness, and who art peremptory only in 
 duty and benevolence !
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 145 
 
 October i$tli. This morning I was looking- at a little 
 engraving I had framed myself, and hung over my 
 writing-table; it is a design of Gavarni's, in which, in a 
 grave mood, he has represented "A Veteran and a Con- 
 script." * 
 
 By often contemplating these two figures, so differ- 
 ent in expression, and so true to life, both have become 
 living in my eyes ; I have seen them move, I have heard 
 them speak ; the picture has become a real scene, at 
 which I am present as spectator. 
 
 The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on 
 the shoulder of the young soldier. His eyes, closed for- 
 ever, no longer perceive the sun shining through the 
 flowering chestnut-trees. In the place of his right arm 
 hangs an empty sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, 
 the sound of which on the pavement makes those who 
 pass turn to look. 
 
 At the sight of this ancient wreck from our patriotic 
 wars, the greater number shake their heads in pity, and 
 I seem to hear a sigh or an imprecation. 
 
 "See the worth of glory ! " says a portly merchant, 
 turning away his eyes in horror. 
 
 " What a deplorable use of human life ! " rejoins a 
 young man who carries a volume of philosophy under 
 his arm. 
 
 " The trooper would better not have left his plough," 
 adds a countryman with a cunning air. 
 
 " Poor old man ! " murmurs a woman almost cry- 
 ing. 
 
 * See this beautiful composition in the " Magasin Pittoresque " for 1847.
 
 146 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 The veteran has heard, and he knits his brow ; for it 
 seems to him that his guide has grown thoughtful. The 
 latter, attracted by what he hears around him, hardly 
 answers the old man's questions, and his eyes, vaguely 
 lost in space, seem to be seeking there for the solution 
 of some problem. 
 
 I seem to see a twitching in the grey moustaches of 
 the veteran ; he stops abruptly, and, holding back his 
 guide with his remaining arm 
 
 " They all pity me," says he, " because they do not 
 understand it ; but if I were to answer them 
 
 "What would you say to them, father?" asks the 
 young man with curiosity. 
 
 " I would say first to the woman who weeps when 
 she looks at me, to keep her tears for other misfortunes ; 
 for each of my wounds calls to mind some struggle 
 for my colours. There is room for doubting how some 
 men have done their duty ; with me it is visible. I 
 carry the account of my services, written with the en- 
 emy's steel and lead, on myself; to pity me for hav- 
 ing done my duty, is to suppose I would better have 
 been false to it." 
 
 " And what would you say to the countryman, fa- 
 ther?" 
 
 " T would tell him that, to drive the plough in peace, 
 we must first secure the country itself ; and that, as 
 long as there are foreigners ready to eat our harvest, 
 there must be arms to defend it." 
 
 " But the young student, too, shook his head when 
 he lamented such a use of life."
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 147 
 
 " Because he does not know what self-sacrifice and 
 suffering can teach. The books which he studies we 
 have put in practice, though we never read them : the 
 principles he applauds we have defended with powder 
 and bayonet." 
 
 " And at the price of your limbs and your blood. 
 The merchant said, when he saw your maimed body, 
 ' See the worth of glory ! ' ' 
 
 " Do not believe him, my son : the true glory is the 
 bread of the soul ; it is this which nourishes self-sacri- 
 fice, patience, and courage. The Master of all has be- 
 stowed it as a tie the more between men. When we 
 desire to be distinguished by our brethren, do we not 
 thus prove our esteem and our sympathy for them ? 
 The longing for admiration is but one side of love. No, 
 no ; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for ! 
 That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities 
 which prove a generous self-sacrifice, but those which 
 our vices or our imprudence have called forth. Ah ! if I 
 could speak aloud to those who, when passing, cast 
 looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man 
 whose excesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, 
 ' What have you done with your eyes?' To the sloth- 
 ful man, who with difficulty drags along his enervated 
 mass of flesh, 'What have you done with your feet?' 
 To the old man who is punished for his intemperance 
 by the gout, ' What have you done with your hands?' 
 To all, ' What have you done with the days God 
 granted you, with the faculties you should have em- 
 ployed for the good of your brethren? If you cannot
 
 148 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 answer bestow no more of your pity upon the old sol- 
 dier maimed in his country's cause; for he he at least 
 can show his scars without shame.' ' 
 
 October i6th. The little engraving has made me 
 comprehend better the merits of Father Chaufour, and 
 I therefore esteem him all the more. 
 
 He has just now left my attic. There no longer 
 passes a single day without his coming to work by my 
 fire, or my going to sit and talk by his board. 
 
 The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell 
 of it. For twenty years he was an armed traveller 
 throughout Europe, and he fought without hatred, for 
 he was possessed by a single thought the honour of 
 the national flag! It might have been his superstition, 
 if you will; but it was, at the same time, his safe- 
 guard. 
 
 The word FRANCE, which was then resounding so 
 gloriously through the world, served as a talisman 
 to him against all sorts of temptation. To have to 
 support a great name may seem a burden to vulgar 
 minds, but it is an encouragement to vigourous 
 ones. 
 
 " I, too, have had many moments," said he to me the 
 other day, " when I have been tempted to make friends 
 with the devil. War is not precisely the school for rural 
 virtues. By dint of burning, destroying, and killing, 
 you grow a little tough as regards your feelings ; and, 
 when the bayonet has made you king, the notions of an 
 autocrat come into your head a little strongly. But at 
 these moments I called to mind that country which the
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whispered to myself 
 the well-known phrase, Toujours Fran$ais ! It has been 
 laughed at since. People who would make a joke of 
 the death of their mother have turned it into ridicule, as 
 if the name of our country was not also a noble and a 
 binding thing. For my part, I shall never forget from 
 how many follies the title of Frenchman has kept me. 
 When, overcome with fatigue, I have found myself in 
 the rear of the colours, and when the musketry was 
 rattling in the front ranks, many a time I heard a voice, 
 which whispered in my ear, ' Leave the others to fight, 
 and for to-day take care of your own hide ! ' But then, 
 that word Franqais ! murmured within me, and I 
 pressed forward to help my comrades. At other 
 times, when, irritated by hunger, cold, and wounds, I 
 have arrived at the hovel of some Meinherr, I have 
 been seized by an itching to break the master's back, 
 and to burn his hut ; but I whispered to myself, Fran- 
 $ais ! and this name would not rhyme either with in- 
 cendiary or murderer. I have, in this way, passed 
 through kingdoms from east to west, and from north 
 to south, always determined not to bring disgrace 
 upon my country's flag. The lieutenant, you see, had 
 taught me a magic word My country! Not only 
 must we defend it, but we must also make it great and 
 loved." 
 
 October ijtli. To-day I have paid my neigh- 
 bour a long visit. A chance expression led the way 
 to his telling me more of himself than he had yet 
 done.
 
 !50 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I asked him whether both his limbs had been lost in 
 the same battle. 
 
 " No, no ! " replied he ; " the cannon only took my 
 leg ; it was the Clamart quarries that my arm went to 
 feed." 
 
 And when I asked him for the particulars 
 
 " That's as easy as to say good morning," continued 
 he. " After the great break-up at Waterloo, I stayed 
 three months in the camp hospital to give my wooden 
 leg time to grow. As soon as I was able to hobble a 
 little, I took leave of headquarters, and took the road to 
 Paris, where I hoped to find some relation or friend ; 
 but no all were gone, or under ground. I should have 
 found myself less strange at Vienna, Madrid, or Berlin. 
 And although I had a leg the less to provide for, I was 
 none the better off; my appetite had come back, and 
 my last sous were taking flight. 
 
 " I had indeed met my old colonel, who recollected 
 that I had helped him out of the skirmish at Montereau 
 by giving him my horse, and he had offered me bed 
 and board at his house. I knew that the year before he 
 had married a castle and no few farms, so that I might 
 become permanent coat-brusher to a millionaire, which 
 was not without its temptations. It remained to see if I 
 had not anything better to do. One evening I set my- 
 self to reflect upon it. 
 
 " ' Let us see, Chaufour,' said I to myself ; ' the ques- 
 tion is to act like a man. The colonel's place suits you, 
 but cannot you do anything better? Your body is still 
 in good condition, and your arms strong ; do you not owe
 
 OUR COUNTRY. i$i 
 
 all your strength to your country, as your Vincennes 
 uncle said ? Why not leave some old soldier, more 
 cut up than you are, to get his hospital at the colo- 
 nel's ? Come, trooper, you are still fit for another stout 
 charge or two ! You must not lay up before your 
 time.' 
 
 " Whereupon I went to thank the colonel, and to 
 offer my services to an old artilleryman, who had gone 
 back to his home at Clamart, and who had taken up the 
 quarryman's pick again. 
 
 " For the first few months I played the conscript's 
 part that is to say, there was more stir than work ; but 
 with a good will one gets the better of stones, as of 
 everything else. I did not become, so to speak, the 
 leader of a column, but I brought up the. rank among 
 the good workmen, and I ate my bread with a good 
 appetite, seeing I had earned it with a good will. For 
 even underground, you see, I still kept my pride. The 
 thought that I was working to do my part in changing 
 rocks into houses pleased my heart. I said to myself, 
 ' Courage, Chaufour, my old boy ; you are helping 
 to beautify your country.' And that kept up my 
 spirit. 
 
 " Unfortunately, some of my companions were rather 
 too sensible to the charms of the brandy bottle ; so 
 much so, that one day one of them, who could hardly 
 distinguish his right hand from his left, thought 
 proper to strike a light close to a charged mine. The 
 mine exploded suddenly, and sent a shower of stone 
 grape among vis, which killed three men, and car-
 
 152 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 ried away the arm of which I have now only the 
 sleeve." 
 
 " So you were again without means of living ? " said 
 I to the old soldier. 
 
 " That is to say, I had to change them," replied he 
 quietly. " The difficulty was to find one which would 
 do with five fingers instead of ten ; I found it, how- 
 ever." 
 
 " How was that ? " 
 
 " Among the Paris street-sweepers." 
 
 " What ! you have been one 
 
 " Of the pioneers of the health force for a while, 
 neighbour, and that was not my worst time either. The 
 corps of sweepers is not so low as it is dirty, I can tell 
 you ! There are old actresses in it who could never 
 learn to save their money, and ruined merchants from 
 the exchange ; we even had a professor of classics, who 
 for a little drink would recite Latin to you, or Greek 
 tragedies, as you chose. They could not have com- 
 peted for the Monthyon prize ; but we excused faults on 
 account of poverty, and cheered our poverty by our 
 good humour and jokes. I was as ragged and as cheer- 
 ful as the rest, while trying to be something better. 
 Even in the mire of the gutter I preserved my faith 
 that nothing is dishonourable which is useful to our 
 country. 
 
 " ' Chaufour,' said I to myself with a smile, ' after the 
 sword, the hammer ; after the hammer, the broom ; you 
 are going down-stairs, my old boy, but you are still serv- 
 ing your country.' "
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 153 
 
 " However, you ended by leaving your new profes- 
 sion? " said I. 
 
 " A reform was required, neighbour. The street- 
 sweepers seldom have their feet dry, and the damp at 
 last made the wounds in my good leg open again. I 
 could no longer follow the regiment, and it was neces- 
 sary to lay down my arms. It is now two months since 
 I left off working in the sanitary department of Paris. 
 
 "At the first moment I was daunted. Of my four 
 limbs, I had now only my right hand, and even that had 
 lost its strength ; so it was necessary to find some gen- 
 tlemanly occupation for it. After trying a little of 
 everything, I fell upon card box making, and here I am 
 at cases for the lace and buttons of the national guard ; 
 it is work of little profit, but it is within the capacity of 
 all. By getting up at four and working till eight, 1 earn 
 sixty-five centimes ; my lodging and bowl of soup take 
 fifty of them, and there are three sous over for luxuries. 
 So I am richer than France herself, for I have no deficit 
 in my budget ; and I continue to serve her, as I save 
 her lace and buttons." 
 
 At these words Father Chaufour looked at me with 
 a smile, and with his great scissors began cutting the 
 green paper again for his card-board cases. My heart 
 was touched, and I remained lost in thought. 
 
 Here is still another member of that sacred phalanx 
 who, in the battle of life, always march in front for the 
 example and the salvation of the world ! Each of these 
 brave soldiers has his war-cry ; for this one it is " Coun- 
 try," for that " Home," for a third " Mankind " ; but
 
 154 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 they all follow the same standard that of duty ; for all 
 the same divine law reigns that of self-sacrifice. To 
 love something more than one's self that is the secret 
 of all that is great ; to know how to live for others 
 that is the aim of all noble souls.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MORAL USE OE INVENTORIES. 
 
 November ijt/i, nine o clock p. M. I had well stopped 
 up the chinks of my window ; my little carpet was 
 nailed down in its place ; my lamp, provided with its 
 shade, cast a subdued light around ; and my stove made 
 a low murmuring sound, as it some live creature was 
 sharing my hearth with me. 
 
 All was silent around me. But out of doors the 
 snow and rain swept the roofs, and with a low rushing 
 sound ran along the gurgling gutters ; sometimes a gust 
 of wind forced itself beneath the tiles, which rattled 
 together like castanets, and afterward it was lost in the 
 empty corridor. Then a slight and pleasurable shiver 
 thrilled through my veins : I drew the flaps of my old 
 wadded dressing-gown round me, I pulled my thread- 
 bare velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting myself sink 
 deeper into mv easy-chair, while my feet basked in the 
 heat and liirht which shone through the door of the
 
 !$6 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 stove, I gave myself up to a sensation of enjoyment, 
 made more lively by the consciousness of the storm 
 which raged without. My eyes, swimming in a sort of 
 mist, wandered over all the details of my peaceful 
 abode ; they passed from my prints to my bookcase, 
 resting upon the little chintz sofa, the white curtains of 
 the iron bedstead, and the portfolio of loose papers 
 those archives of the attics ; and then, returning to the 
 book I held in my hand, they attempted to seize once 
 more the thread of the reading which had been thus 
 interrupted. 
 
 In fact this book, the subject of which had at first 
 interested me, had become painful to me. I had come 
 to the conclusion that the pictures of the writer were too 
 sombre. His description of the miseries of the world 
 appeared exaggerated to me ; I could not believe in 
 such excess of poverty and of suffering ; neither God 
 nor man could show themselves so harsh toward the 
 sons of Adam. The author had yielded to an artistic 
 temptation : he was making a show of the sufferings of 
 humanity, as Nero burnt Rome for the sake of the pict- 
 uresque. 
 
 Taken altogether, this poor human house, so often 
 repaired, so much criticised, is still a pretty good 
 abode ; we may find enough in it to satisfy our wants, 
 if we know how to set bounds to them ; the happi- 
 ness of the wise man costs but little, and asks but little 
 space. 
 
 These consoling reflections became more and more 
 confused. At last my book fell on the ground without
 
 I saw aj^ain my mother's gentle face.
 
 MORAL USE OF IN TEN TORIES. r ^ 
 
 my having the resolution to stoop and take it up again ; 
 and insensibly overcome by the luxury of the silence, 
 the subdued light, and the warmth, I fell asleep. 
 
 I remained for some time lost in the sort of insensi- 
 bility belonging to a first sleep ; at last some vague and 
 broken sensation came over me. It seemed to me that 
 the day grew darker, that the air became colder. I half 
 perceived bushes covered with the scarlet berries which 
 foretell the coming of winter. I walked on a dreary 
 road, bordered here and there with juniper-trees white 
 with frost. Then the scene suddenly changed. I was 
 in the diligence : the cold wind shook the doors and 
 windows ; the trees, loaded with snow, passed by like 
 ghosts ; in vain I thrust my benumbed feet into the 
 crushed straw. At last the carriage stopped, and, by 
 one of those stage effects so common in sleep, I found 
 myself alone in a barn, without a fireplace, and open to 
 the winds on all sides. I saw again my mother's gentle 
 face, known only to me in my early childhood, the noble 
 and stern countenance of my father, the little fair head 
 of mv sister, who was taken from us at ten years old : 
 all my dead family lived again around me; they were 
 there, exposed to the bitings of the cold and to the pangs 
 of hunger. My mother prayed by the resigned old man, 
 and my sister, rolled up on some rags of which they had 
 made her a bed, cried in silence, and held her naked 
 feet in her little blue hands. 
 
 It was a page from the book I had just read trans- 
 ferred into my own existence. 
 
 My heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish.
 
 158 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Crouched in a corner, with my eyes fixed upon this 
 dismal picture, I felt the cold slowly creeping upon me, 
 and I said to myself with bitterness : 
 
 " Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by 
 suspicion, apathy, and contempt, and from which it is 
 vain to try to escape ; let us die, since there is no place 
 for us at the banquet of the living ! " 
 
 And I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to 
 wait at her feet for the hour of release. 
 
 This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a 
 start. 
 
 I looked around me ; my lamp was expiring, the fire 
 in my stove extinguished, and my half-opened door was 
 letting in an icy wind. I got up, with a shiver, to shut 
 and double-lock it ; then I made for the alcove, and 
 went to bed in haste. 
 
 But the cold kept me awake a long time, and my 
 thoughts continued the interrupted dream. 
 
 The pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration 
 now seemed but a too faithful representation of reality ; 
 and I went to sleep without being able to recover my 
 optimism or my warmth. 
 
 Thus did a cold stove and a badly closed door alter 
 my point of view. All went well when my blood cir- 
 culated properly ; all looked gloomy when the cold 
 laid hold on me. 
 
 This reminds me of the story of the duchess who 
 was obliged to pay a visit to the neighbouring convent 
 on a winter's day. The convent was poor, there was no 
 wood, and the monks had nothing but their discipline
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 
 
 159 
 
 and the ardour of their prayers to keep out the cold. 
 The duchess, who was shivering with cold, returned 
 home, greatly pitying the poor monks. While the 
 servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more 
 logs to her fire, she called for her steward, whom she 
 ordered to send some wood to the convent immediately. 
 She then had her couch moved close to the fireside, the 
 warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of 
 what she had just suffered was speedily lost in her 
 present comfort, when the steward came in again to ask 
 how many loads of wood he was to send. 
 
 " Oh ! you may wait," said the great lady carelessly ; 
 " the weather is very much milder." 
 
 Thus, man's judgments are formed less from reason 
 than from sensation ; and as sensation comes to him 
 from the outward world, so he finds himself more or 
 less under its influence ; by little and little he imbibes a 
 portion of his habits and feelings from it. 
 
 It is not then without cause that, when we wish to 
 judge of a stranger beforehand, we look for indications 
 of his character in the circumstances which surround 
 him. The things among which we live are necessarily 
 made to take our image, and we unconsciously leave in 
 them a thousand impressions of our minds. As we can 
 judge by an empty bed of the height and attitude of 
 him who has slept in it, so the abode of every man dis- 
 covers to a close observer the extent of his intelligence 
 and the feelings of his heart. Bernardin de St.-Pierre 
 has related the story of a young girl who refused a 
 suitor because he would never have flowers or domestic
 
 j6o AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 animals in his house. Perhaps the sentence was severe, 
 but not without reason. We may presume that a man 
 insensible to beauty and to humble affection must be ill 
 prepared to feel the enjoyments of a happy marriage. 
 
 /^///, seven d clock P. M. This morning, as I was 
 opening my journal to write, I had a visit from our old 
 cashier. 
 
 His sight is not so good as it was, his hand begins to 
 shake, and the work he was able to do formerly is now 
 becoming somewhat laborious to him. I had under- 
 taken to write out some of his papers, and he came for 
 those I had finished. 
 
 We conversed a long time by the stove, while he 
 was drinking a cup of coffee which I made him take. 
 
 M. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed 
 much and speaks little ; so that he has always some- 
 thing to say. 
 
 While looking over the accounts I had prepared for 
 him, his looks fell upon my journal, and I was obliged 
 to acknowledge that in this way I wrote a diary of my 
 actions and thoughts every evening for private use. 
 From one thing to another, I began speaking to him of 
 my dream the day before, and my reflections about the 
 influence of outward objects upon our ordinary senti- 
 ments. He smiled. 
 
 "Ah ! you too have my superstitions" he said quietly. 
 " I have always believed, like you, that yon may know 
 the game by the lair : it is only necessary to have tact 
 and experience ; but without them we commit ourselves 
 to many rash judgements. For my part, I have been
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. t 6l 
 
 guilty of this more than once, but sometimes I have 
 also drawn a right conclusion. I recollect especially an 
 adventure which goes as far back as the first years of 
 my youth 
 
 He stopped. I looked at him as if I waited for his 
 story, and he told it me at once. 
 
 At this time he was still but third clerk to an attor- 
 ney at Orleans. His master had sent him to Montargis 
 on different affairs, and he intended to return in the 
 diligence the same evening, after having received the 
 amount of a bill at a neighbouring town ; but they kept 
 him at the debtor's house, and when he was able to set 
 out the day had already closed. 
 
 Fearing not to be able to reach Montargis in good 
 time, he took a cross-road they pointed out to him. Un- 
 fortunately the fog increased, no star was visible in the 
 heavens, and the darkness became so great that he lost 
 his road. He tried to retrace his steps, passed twenty 
 footpaths, and at last found himself completely astray. 
 
 After the vexation of losing his place in the dili- 
 gence, came the feeling of uneasiness as to his situation. 
 He was alone, on foot, lost in a forest, without any 
 means of finding his right road again, and with a con- 
 siderable sum of money about him, for which he was 
 responsible. His anxiety was increased by his inexpe- 
 rience. The idea of a forest was connected in his mind 
 with so many adventures of robbery and murder, that 
 he expected some fatal encounter every instant. 
 
 To say the truth, his situation was not encouraging. 
 The place was not considered safe, and for some time
 
 162 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 past there had been rumours of the sudden disappear- 
 ance of several horse-dealers, though there was no trace 
 of any crime having been committed. 
 
 Our young traveller, with his eyes staring forward, 
 and his ears listening, followed a footpath which he 
 supposed might take him to some house or road ; but 
 woods always succeeded to woods. At last he per- 
 ceived a light at a distance, and in a quarter of an hour 
 he reached the high-road. 
 
 A single house, the light from which had attracted 
 him, appeared at a little distance. He was going to- 
 ward the entrance gate of the court-yard when the trot 
 of a horse made him turn his head. A man on horse- 
 back had just appeared at the turning of the road, and 
 in an instant was close to him. 
 
 The first words he addressed to the young man 
 showed him to be the farmer himself. He related how 
 he had lost himself, and learned from the countryman 
 that he was on the road to Pithiviers. Montargis was 
 three leagues behind him. 
 
 The fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling rain, 
 which was beginning to wet the young clerk through ; 
 he seemed afraid of the distance he had still to go, and 
 the horseman, who saw his hesitation, invited him to 
 come into the farm-house. 
 
 It had something of the look of a fortress. Sur- 
 rounded by a pretty high wall, it could not be seen 
 except through the bars of the great gate, which was 
 carefully closed. The farmer, who had got off his 
 horse, did not go near it, but, turning to the right,
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 
 
 163 
 
 reached another entrance closed in the same way, but 
 of which he had the key. 
 
 Hardly had he passed the threshold when a terrible 
 barking resounded from each end of the yard. The 
 farmer told his guest to fear nothing, and showed him 
 the dogs chained up to their kennels ; both were of an 
 extraordinary size, and so savage that the sight of their 
 master himself could not quiet them. 
 
 A boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the 
 house and took the farmer's horse. The latter began 
 questioning him about some orders he had given before 
 he left the house, and went toward the stable to see that 
 they had been executed. 
 
 Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him. 
 
 A lantern which the boy had placed on the ground 
 cast a dim light over the court-yard. All around seemed 
 empty and deserted. Not a trace was visible of the 
 disorder often seen in a country farm-yard, and which 
 shows a temporary cessation of the work which is soon 
 to be resumed again. Neither a cart forgotten where 
 the horses had been unharnessed, nor sheaves of corn 
 heaped up ready for threshing, nor a plough overturned 
 in a corner and half hidden under the freshly cut clover. 
 The yard was swept, the barns shut up and padlocked. 
 Not a single vine creeping up the walls ; everywhere 
 stone, wood, and iron ! 
 
 He took up the lantern and went up to the corner 
 of the house. Behind was a second yard, where he 
 heard the barking of a third dog, and a covered well 
 was built in the middle of it.
 
 164 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Our traveller looked in vain for the little farm gar- 
 den, where pumpkins of different sorts creep along the 
 ground, or where the bees from the hives hum under 
 the hedges of honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and 
 flowers were nowhere to be seen. He did not even 
 perceive the sight of a poultry-yard or pigeon-house. 
 The habitation of his host was everywhere wanting in 
 that which makes the grace, the life, and the charm of 
 the country. 
 
 The young man thought that his host must be of a 
 very careless or a very calculating disposition, to con- 
 cede so little to domestic enjoyments and the pleasures 
 of the eye ; and judging, in spite of himself, by what he 
 saw, he could not help feeling a distrust of his char- 
 acter. 
 
 In the mean time the farmer returned from the 
 stables, and made him enter the house. 
 
 The inside of the farm-house corresponded to its 
 outside. The whitewashed walls had no other orna- 
 ment than a row of guns of all sizes ; the massive furni- 
 ture scarcely redeemed its clumsy appearance by its 
 great solidity. The cleanliness was doubtful, and the 
 absence of all minor conveniences proved that a woman's 
 care was wanting in the household concerns. The 
 young clerk learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here 
 with no one but his two sons. 
 
 Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A 
 table with a cloth laid, that no one had taken the 
 trouble to clear away, was left near the window. The 
 plates and dishes were scattered upon it without any
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. \^ 
 
 order, and loaded with potato parings and half-picked 
 bones. Several empty bottles emitted an odour of 
 brandy, mixed with the pungent smell of tobacco 
 smoke. 
 
 After having seated his guest, the farmer lit his pipe, 
 and his two sons resumed their work by the fireside. 
 Now and then the silence was just broken by a short 
 remark, answered by a word or an exclamation ; and 
 then all became as mute as before. 
 
 " From my childhood," said the old cashier, " I had 
 been very sensible to the impression of outward ob- 
 jects ; later in life reflection had taught me to study the 
 causes of these impressions rather than to drive them 
 away. I set myself, then, to examine everything around 
 me with great attention. 
 
 " Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, some 
 wolf-traps were suspended, and to one of them still 
 hung the mangled remains of a wolf's paw, which they 
 had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The black- 
 ened chimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a 
 raven nailed on the wall, their wings extended, and 
 their throats with a huge nail through each ; a fox's 
 skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window ; 
 and a larder hook, fixed into the principal beam, held 
 a headless goose, whose body swayed about over our 
 heads. 
 
 " My eyes were offended by all these details, and I 
 turned them again upon my hosts. The father, who sat 
 opposite to me, only interrupted his smoking to pour 
 out his drink, or address some reprimand to his sons.
 
 j66 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 The eldest of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the 
 bloody scrapings, which he threw into the fire every 
 instant, filled the room with a disagreeable fetid smell ; 
 the second son was sharpening some butcher's knives. 
 I learned from a word dropped from the father that 
 they were preparing to kill a pig the next day. 
 
 " These occupations and the whole aspect of things 
 inside the house told of such habitual coarseness in 
 their way of living as seemed to explain, while it formed 
 the fitting counterpart of, the forbidding gloominess of 
 the outside. My astonishment by degrees changed into 
 disgust, and my disgust into uneasiness. I cannot de- 
 tail the whole chain of ideas which succeeded one an- 
 other in my imagination ; but, yielding to an impulse I 
 could not overcome, I got up, declaring I would go on 
 my road again. 
 
 " The farmer made some effort to keep me ; he spoke 
 of the rain, of the darkness, and of the length of the 
 way. I replied to all by the absolute necessity there 
 was for my being at Montargis that very night ; and 
 thanking him for his brief hospitality, I set off again in 
 a haste which might well have confirmed the truth of 
 my words to him. 
 
 " However, the freshness of the night and the exer- 
 cise of walking did not fail to change the directions of 
 my thoughts. When away from the objects which had 
 awakened such lively disgust in me, I felt it gradually 
 diminishing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of 
 my feelings, and then, in proportion as the rain became 
 heavier and colder, these strictures on myself assumed
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. ^ 
 
 a tone of ill temper. I silently accused myself of the 
 absurdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of my 
 reason. After all, were not the farmer and his sons free 
 to live alone, to hunt, to keep dogs, and to kill a pig ? 
 Where was the crime of it ? With less nervous suscep- 
 tibility, I should have accepted the shelter they offered 
 me, and I should now be sleeping snugly on a truss of 
 straw, instead of walking with difficulty through the 
 cold and drizzling rain. I thus continued to reproach 
 myself, until toward morning I arrived at Montargis, 
 jaded and benumbed with cold. 
 
 "When, however, I got up refreshed, toward the 
 middle of the next day, I instinctively returned to my 
 first opinion. The appearance of the farm-house pre- 
 sented itself to me under the same repulsive colours 
 which the evening before had determined me to make 
 my escape from it. Reason itself remained silent when 
 reviewing all those coarse details, and was lorced to 
 recognise in them the indications of a low nature, or 
 else the presence of some baleful influence. 
 
 " I went away the next day without being able to 
 learn anything concerning the farmer or his sons ; but 
 the recollection of my adventure remained deeply fixed 
 in my memory. 
 
 " Ten years afterward I was travelling in the dili- 
 gence through the department of the Loiret ; 1 was 
 leaning from the window, and looking at some coppice 
 ground now for the first time brought under cultiva- 
 tion, and the mode of clearing which one of my travel- 
 ling companions was explaining to me, when my 63^5
 
 1 68 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 fell upon a walled enclosure, with an iron-barred gate. 
 Inside it I perceived a house with all the blinds closed, 
 and which I immediately recollected. It was the farm- 
 house where I had been sheltered. I eagerly pointed 
 it out to my companion, and asked who lived in it. 
 
 "'Nobody, just now,' replied he. 
 
 " ' But was it not kept, some years ago, by a farmer 
 and his two sons ? ' 
 
 " ' The Turreaus,' said my travelling companion, 
 looking at me ; ' did you know them ? ' 
 
 " ' I saw them once. 1 
 
 " He shook his head. 
 
 "'Yes, yes!' resumed he; 'for many years they 
 lived there like wolves in their den ; they merely knew 
 how to till land, kill game, and drink. The father man- 
 aged the house, but men living alone, without women to 
 love them, without children to soften them, and without 
 God to make them think of heaven, always turn into 
 wild beasts, you see ; so one morning the eldest son, 
 who had been drinking too much brandy, would not 
 harness the plough-horses ; his father struck him with 
 his whip, and the son, who was mad drunk, shot him 
 dead with his gun.' ' 
 
 i6tk, P. M. I have been thinking of the story of the 
 old cashier these two days ; it came so opportunely 
 upon the reflections my dream had suggested to me. 
 
 Have I not an important lesson to learn from all 
 this ? 
 
 If our sensations have an incontestable influence 
 upon our judgements, how comes it that we are so little
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. l ^ 
 
 careful of those things which awaken or modify these 
 sensations? The external world is always reflected in 
 us as in a mirror, and fills our minds with pictures 
 which, unconsciously to ourselves, become the germs of 
 our opinions and of our rules of conduct. All the ob- 
 jects which surround us are then, in reality, so many 
 talismans from whence good and bad influences are 
 emitted. It is for us to choose them wisely, so as to 
 create a healthy atmosphere for our minds. 
 
 Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a 
 survey of my attic. 
 
 The first object on which my eyes rest is an old map 
 of the history of the principal monastery in my native 
 province. I had unrolled it with much satisfaction, and 
 placed it on the most conspicuous part of the wall. 
 Why had I given it this place ? Ought this sheet of old 
 worm-eaten parchment to be of so much value to me, 
 who am neither an antiquary nor a scholar? Is not its 
 real importance in my sight that one of the abbots who 
 founded it bore my name, and that I shall, perchance, 
 be able to make myself a genealogical tree of it for the 
 edification of my visitors? While writing this, I feel 
 my own blushes. Come, down with the map ! let us 
 banish it into my deepest drawer. 
 
 As I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting 
 cards complacently displayed in the frame. By what 
 chance is it that there are only names that make a show 
 among them ? Here is a Polish count a retired colonel 
 the deputy of my department. Quick, quick, into the 
 fire with these proofs of vanity ! and let us put this card
 
 !7o AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 in the handwriting of our office boy, this direction for 
 cheap dinners, and the receipt of the broker where I 
 bought my last arm-chair, in their place. These indica- 
 tions of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne says, mater 
 ma superbe, and will always make me recollect the mod- 
 esty in which the dignity of the lowly consists. 
 
 I have stopped before the prints hanging upon the 
 wall. This large and smiling Pomona, seated on sheaves 
 of corn, and whose basket is overflowing with fruit, only 
 produces thoughts of joy and plenty ; I was looking at 
 her the other day, when I fell asleep denying such a 
 thing as misery. Let us give her as companion this 
 picture of Winter, in which everything tells of sorrow 
 and suffering : one picture will modify the other. 
 
 And this Happy Family of Greuze's ! What joy in 
 the children's eyes! what sweet repose in the young 
 woman's face ! what religious feeling in the grand- 
 father's countenance ! May God preserve their happi- 
 ness to them ! but let us hang by its side the picture of 
 this mother, who weeps over an empty cradle. Human 
 life has two faces, both of which we must dare to con- 
 template in their turns. 
 
 Let me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters which 
 ornament my chimneypiece. Plato has said that the 
 beautiful is nothing else than the visible form of the good. 
 If it is so, the ugly should be the visible form of the 
 evil, and, by constantly beholding it, the mind insensibly 
 deteriorates. 
 
 But above all, in order to cherish the feelings of 
 kindness and pity, let me hang at the foot of my bed
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 
 
 171 
 
 this affecting picture of the Last Sleep ! Never have I 
 been able to look at it without feeling my heart touched. 
 
 An old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a road- 
 side ; her stick is at her feet, and her head rests upon 
 a stone ; she has fallen asleep ; her hands are clasped ; 
 murmuring a prayer of her childhood, she sleeps her 
 last sleep, she dreams her last dream ! 
 
 She sees herself, again a strong and 
 happy child, keeping the sheep on the 
 common, gathering the berries from the ..'-,. 
 
 hedges, singing, curtseying to passers- 
 by, and making the sign of the 
 
 cross when the first star appears ' f 
 
 ' ' ML 
 in the heavens ! Happy time, 
 
 filled with fragrance and 
 sunshine ! She wants 
 nothing yet, for she 
 is ignorant of what 
 there is to wish for. 
 But see her grown 
 up ; the time is come 
 for working brave- 
 ly ; she must cut 
 the corn, thresh the 
 
 wheat, carry the bundles of flowering clover or branches 
 of withered leaves to the farm. If her toil is hard, 
 hope shines like a sun over everything and it wipes 
 the drops of sweat away. The growing girl already 
 sees that life is a task; but she still sings as she ful- 
 fils it.
 
 1/2 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 By-and-by the burthen becomes heavier ; she is a 
 wife, she is a mother ! She must economise the bread 
 of to-day, have her eye upon the morrow, take care of 
 the sick, and sustain the feeble ; she must act, in short, 
 that part of an earthly Providence, so easy when God 
 gives us his aid, so hard when He forsakes us. The 
 woman is still strong, but she is anxious ; she sings no 
 longer ! 
 
 Yet a few years, and all is overcast. The husband's 
 health is broken ; his wife sees him pine away by the 
 now fireless hearth ; cold and hunger finish what sick- 
 ness had begun ; he dies, and his widow sits on the 
 ground by the coffin provided by the charity of others, 
 pressing her two half-naked little ones in her arms. 
 She dreads the future, she weeps, and she droops her 
 head. 
 
 At last the future has come ; the children are grown 
 up, but they are no longer with her. Her son is fight- 
 ing under his country's flag, and his sister is gone. 
 Both have been lost to her for a long time perhaps 
 forever ; and the strong girl, the brave wife, the coura- 
 geous mother, is from henceforth but an aged beggar- 
 woman, without a family and without a home ! She 
 weeps no more, sorrow has subdued her ; she surren- 
 ders, and waits for death. 
 
 Death, that faithful friend of the wretched, is come : 
 not hideous and with mockery, as superstition represents, 
 but beautiful, smiling, and crowned with stars ! The 
 gentle phantom stoops to the beggar ; its pale lips mur- 
 mur a few airy words, which announce to her the end
 
 MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 
 
 173 
 
 of her labours ; a peaceful joy comes over the aged 
 beggar-woman, and, leaning on the shoulder of the 
 great Deliverer, she has passed unconsciously from her 
 last earthly sleep to her eternal rest. 
 
 Lie there, thou poor way-wearied woman ! The 
 leaves will serve thee for a winding-sheet, Night will 
 shed her tears of dew over thee, and the birds will sing 
 sweetly by thy remains. Thy visit here below will 
 not have left more trace than their flight through the 
 air ; thy name is already forgotten, and the only legacy 
 thou hast to leave is the hawthorn stick lying forgotten 
 at thy feet ! 
 
 Well ! some one will take it up some soldier of that 
 great human host which is scattered abroad by misery 
 or by vice ; for thou art not an exception, thou art 
 an instance ; and under the same sun which shines so 
 pleasantly upon all, in the midst of these flowering vine- 
 yards, this ripe corn, and these wealthy cities, entire 
 generations suffer, succeed each other, and still be- 
 queath to each the beggar's stick ! 
 
 The sight of this sad picture shall make me more 
 grateful for what God has given me, and more compas- 
 sionate for those whom He has treated with less indul- 
 gence. It shall be a lesson and a subject for reflection 
 for me. 
 
 Ah ! if we would watch for everything that might 
 improve and instruct us; if the arrangements of our 
 daily life were so disposed as to be a constant school for 
 our minds ; but oftenest we take no heed of them. Man 
 is an eternal mystery to himself; his own person is a
 
 174 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 house into which he never enters, and of which he 
 studies the outside alone. Each of us need have con. 
 tinually before him the famous inscription which once 
 instructed Socrates, and which was engraved on the 
 walls of Delphi by an unknown hand : 
 
 " KNOW THYSELF."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. 
 
 December 3O//r, P. M. I was in bed, and hardly re- 
 covered from the delirious fever which had kept me for 
 so long- between life and death. My weakened brain 
 was making efforts to recover its activity ; my thoughts, 
 like rays of light struggling through the clouds, were 
 still confused and imperfect; at times I felt a return of 
 the dizziness which made a chaos of all my ideas, and I 
 floated, so to speak, between alternate fits of mental 
 wandering and consciousness. 
 
 Sometimes everything seemed plain to me, like the 
 prospect which, from the top of some high mountain, 
 opens before us in clear weather. We distinguish 
 water, woods, villages, cattle, even the cottage perched 
 on the edge of the ravine ; then suddenly there comes 
 a gust of wind laden with mist, and all is confused and 
 indistinct.
 
 176 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Thus, yielding to the oscillations of a half-recovered 
 reason, I allowed my mind to follow its various impulses 
 without troubling- myself to separate the real from the 
 imaginary ; I glided softly from one to the other, and 
 my dreams and waking thoughts succeeded closely upon 
 one another. 
 
 Now, while my mind is wandering in this unsettled 
 state, see, underneath the clock which measures the 
 hours with its loud ticking, a female figure appears be- 
 fore me ! 
 
 At first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that she 
 was not a daughter of Eve. In her eye was the last 
 flash of an expiring star, and her face had the pallor of 
 an heroic death struggle. She was dressed in a drapery 
 of a thousand changing colours of the brightest and the 
 most sombre hues, and she held a withered garland in 
 her hand. 
 
 After having contemplated her for some moments, I 
 asked her name, and what brought her into my attic. 
 Her eyes, which were following the movements of the 
 clock, turned toward me, and she replied : 
 
 " You see in me the year which is just drawing to 
 its end ; I come to receive your thanks and your fare- 
 well." 
 
 I raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon 
 gave place to bitter resentment. 
 
 " Ah ! you want thanks," cried I ; " but first let me 
 know what for ? 
 
 " When I welcomed your coming, I was still young 
 and vigourous: you have taken from me each day some
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. l jn 
 
 little of my strength, and you have ended by inflicting 
 an illness upon me ; already, thanks to you, my blood is 
 less warm, my muscles less firm, and my feet less agile 
 than before ! You have planted the germs of infirmity 
 in my bosom ; there, where the summer flowers of life 
 were growing, you have wickedly sown the nettles of 
 old age ! 
 
 "And, as if it was not enough to weaken my body, 
 you have also diminished the powers of my soul : you 
 have extinguished her enthusiasm ; she is become more 
 sluggish and more timid. Formerly her eyes took 
 in the whole of mankind in their generous survey ; but 
 you have made her near-sighted, and now she scarcely 
 sees beyond herself ! 
 
 " That is what you have done for my spiritual being: 
 then as to my outward existence, see to what grief, 
 neglect, and misery you have reduced it ! 
 
 " For the many days that the fever has kept me 
 chained to this bed, who has taken care of this home, in 
 which I placed all my joy ? Shall I not find my closets 
 empty, my bookcase stripped, all my poor treasures lost 
 through negligence or dishonesty ? Where are the 
 plants I cultivated, the birds I fed? All are gone! my 
 attic is despoiled, silent, and solitary ! 
 
 "As it is only for the last few moments that I have 
 returned to a consciousness of what surrounds me, 1 
 am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long 
 illness ! Doubtless some hireling, who will leave when 
 all my means of recompense are exhausted ! 
 
 " And what will my masters, for whom I am bound
 
 1 78 AX ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 to work, have said to my absence ? At this time of the 
 year, when business is most pressing, can they have 
 done without me, will they even have tried to do so ? 
 Perhaps I am already superseded in the humble situa- 
 tion by which I earned my daily bread ! And it is thou 
 thou alone, wicked daughter of Time who hast 
 brought all these misfortunes upon me : strength, health, 
 comfort, work thou hast taken all from me. I have 
 only received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou 
 darest to claim my gratitude ! 
 
 " Ah ! die then, since thy day is come ; but die 
 despised and cursed ; and may I write on thy tomb the 
 epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon that of a king : 
 
 " ' Rejoice, thou passer-by : he whom we have buried here 
 cannot live again.' " 
 
 I was awakened by a hand taking mine ; and open- 
 ing my eyes, I recognised the doctor. 
 
 After having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat 
 down at the foot of the bed, and looked at me, rubbing 
 his nose with his snuff-box. I have since learned that 
 this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor. 
 
 " Well ! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off ? ' : 
 said M. Lambert, in his half-joking, half-scolding way. 
 " What the deuce of a hurry we were in ! It was neces- 
 sary to hold you back with both arms at least ! " 
 
 "Then you had given me up, doctor?" asked I, 
 rather alarmed. 
 
 " Not at all," replied the old physician. " We can't 
 give up what we have not got ; and I make it a rule
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. 
 
 179 
 
 never to have any hope. We are but instruments in the 
 hands of Providence, and each of us should say with 
 Ambroise Pare : ' I tend him, God cures him ! ' 
 
 " May He be blessed then, as well as you," cried I ; 
 " and may my health come back with the new year ! " 
 
 M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Begin by asking yourself for it," resumed he 
 bluntly. " God has given it you, and it is your own 
 sense, and not chance, that must keep it for you. One 
 would think, to hear people talk, that sickness comes 
 upon us like the rain or the sunshine, without one 
 having a word to say in the matter. Before \ve com- 
 plain of being ill we should prove that we deserve to be 
 well." 
 
 I was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry. 
 
 "Ah! you think that I am joking," resumed he, 
 raising his voice ; " but tell me, then, which of us gives 
 his health the same attention that he gives to his 
 business ? Do you economise your strength as you 
 economise your money ? Do you avoid excess and 
 imprudence in the one case with the same care as 
 extravagance or foolish speculations in the other? Do 
 you keep as regular accounts of your mode of living as 
 you do of your income ? Do you consider every even- 
 ing- what has been wholesome or unwholesome for you, 
 
 o J 
 
 with the same care as you bring to the examination of 
 your expenditure ? You may smile ; but have you not 
 brought this illness on yourself by a thousand indis- 
 cretions ?" 
 
 I began to protest against this, and asked him to
 
 igo AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 point out these indiscretions. The old doctor spread 
 out his fingers, and began to reckon upon them one by 
 one. 
 
 " Primo," cried he, " want of exercise. You live here 
 like a mouse in a cheese, without air, motion, or change. 
 Consequently, the blood circulates badly, the fluids 
 thicken, the muscles, being inactive, do not claim their 
 share of nutrition, the stomach flags, and the brain 
 grows weary. 
 
 " Secundo. Irregular food. Caprice is your cook; 
 your stomach a slave who must accept what you give 
 it, but who presently takes a sullen revenge, like all 
 slaves. 
 
 " Tertio. Sitting up late. Instead of using the night 
 for sleep, you spend it in reading ; your bedstead is a 
 bookcase, your pillow a desk ! At the time when the 
 wearied brain asks for rest, you lead it through these 
 nocturnal orgies, and you are surprised to find it the 
 worse for them the next day. 
 
 " Quarto. Luxurious habits. Shut up in your attic, 
 you insensibly surround yourself with a thousand ef- 
 feminate indulgences. You must have list for your 
 door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, 
 an easy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire 
 lit at the first sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp ; 
 and, thanks to all these precautions, the least draught 
 makes you catch cold, common chairs give you no rest, 
 and you must wear spectacles to support the light of 
 day. You have thought you were acquiring comforts, 
 and you have only contracted infirmities.
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. !8i 
 
 " Quinto" 
 
 " Ah ! enough, enough, doctor ! " cried 1. " Pray, 
 do not carry your examination further ; do not attach a 
 sense of remorse to each of my pleasures." 
 
 The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuff- 
 box. 
 
 " You see," said he, more gently, and rising at the 
 same time, " you would escape from the truth. You 
 shrink from enquiry a proof that you are guilty. Ha- 
 bcmus confitentem reuni ! But at least, my friend, do 
 not go on laying the blame on Time, like an old 
 woman." 
 
 Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his 
 leave, declaring that his function was at an end, and 
 that the rest depended upon myself. 
 
 When the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting 
 upon what he had said. 
 
 Although his words were too sweeping, they were 
 not the less true in the main. How often we accuse 
 chance of an illness, the origin of which we should seek 
 in ourselves! Perhaps it would have been wiser to let 
 him finish the examination he had begun. 
 
 But is there not another of more importance that 
 which concerns the health of the soul ? Am I so sure 
 of having neglected no means of preserving that during 
 the year which is now ending? Have I, as one of 
 God's soldiers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms 
 efficient? Shall I be ready for the great review of souls 
 which must pass before HIM WHO is in the dark valley 
 of Jehoshaphat? 
 13
 
 1 82 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 Barest thou examine thyself, O my soul ! and see 
 how often thou hast erred ? 
 
 First, thou hast erred through pride ! for I have not 
 duly valued the lowly. I have drunk too deeply of the 
 intoxicating wines of genius, and have found no relish 
 in pure water. I have disdained those words which 
 had no other beauty than their sincerity ; I have ceased 
 to love men solely because they are men I have loved 
 them for their endowments ; I have contracted the 
 world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, and 
 my sympathy has been awakened by admiration only. 
 The vulgar crowd, which I ought to have followed with 
 a friendly eye, because it is composed of my brothers in 
 hope or grief, I have let pass by me with as much in- 
 difference as if it were a flock of sheep. I am indignant 
 with him who rolls in riches and despises the man poor 
 in worldly wealth ; and yet, vain of my trifling knowl- 
 edge, I despise him who is poor in mind I scorn the pov- 
 erty of intellect as others do that of dress ; I take credit 
 for a gift which I did not bestow on myself, and turn 
 the favor of fortune into a weapon with which to at- 
 tack others. 
 
 Ah ! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ignorance 
 has revolted and raised a cry of hatred against genius, 
 the fault is not alone in the envious malice of ignorance, 
 but comes in part, too, from the contemptuous pride of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Alas ! I have too completely forgotten the fable of 
 the two sons of the magician of Bagdad. 
 
 One of them, struck by an irrevocable degree of
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. jg-, 
 
 destiny, was born blind, while the other enjoyed all the 
 delights of sight. The latter, proud of his own advan- 
 tages, laughed at his brother's blindness, and disdained 
 him as a companion. One morning the blind boy 
 wished to go out with him. 
 
 " To what purpose," said he, " since the gods have 
 put nothing in common between us ? For me creation 
 is a stage, where a thousand charming scenes and won- 
 derful actors appear in succession ; for you it is only an 
 obscure abyss, at the bottom of which you hear the con- 
 fused murmur of an invisible world. Continue then 
 alone in your darkness, and leave the pleasures of light 
 to those upon whom the day-star shines." 
 
 With these words he went away, and his brother, left 
 alone, began to cry bitterly. His father, who heard 
 him, immediately ran to him, and tried to console him 
 by promising to give him whatever he desired. 
 
 " Can you give me sight ? " asked the child. 
 
 " Fate does not permit it," said the magician. 
 
 " Then," cried the blind boy eagerly, " I ask you to 
 put out the sun ! " 
 
 Who knows whether my pride has not provoked the 
 same wish on the part of some one of my brothers who 
 does not see ? 
 
 But how much oftener have I erred through levity 
 and want of thought ! How many resolutions have I 
 taken at random ! how many judgements have I pro- 
 nounced for the sake of a witticism ! how many mischiefs 
 have I not done without any sense of my responsibility ! 
 The greater part of men harm one another for the sake
 
 184 AN ATT IC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 of doing something'. We laugh at the honour of one, 
 and compromise the reputation of another, like an idle 
 man who saunters along a hedgerow, breaking the young 
 branches and destroying the most beautiful flowers. 
 
 And, nevertheless, it is by this very thoughtlessness 
 that the fame of some men is created. It rises gradually, 
 like one of those mysterious mounds in barbarous coun- 
 tries, to which a stone is added by every passer-by ; 
 each one brings something at random, and adds it as he 
 passes, without being able himself to see whether he is 
 raising a pedestal or a gibbet. Who will dare look 
 behind him, to see his rash judgements held up there to 
 view ? 
 
 Some time ago I was walking along the edge of the 
 green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph 
 stands Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which 
 wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and 
 arrested my attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, 
 which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast ; and 
 he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he de- 
 scribed various strange figures in the air. He spoke 
 very loud, and in a voice which seemed to me convulsed 
 with passion. He raised his eyes every now and then 
 with an expression of savage harshness, and it appeared 
 to me that he was reproaching and threatening the girl, 
 and that she was listening to him with a submissiveness 
 which touched my heart. Two or three times she vent- 
 ured a few words, doubtless in the attempt to justify 
 herself ; but the man in the great-coat began again im- 
 mediately with his loud and angry voice, his savage
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 looks, and his threatening evolutions in the air. I fol- 
 lowed him with my eyes, vainly endeavouring to catch 
 a word as he passed, until he disappeared behind the 
 hill. 
 
 I had evidently just seen one of those domestic 
 tyrants whose sullen tempers are excited by the pa- 
 tience of their victims, and who, though they have the 
 power to become the beneficent gods of a family, 
 choose rather to be their tormentors. 
 
 I cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and I felt 
 indignant that these crimes against the sacred peace of 
 home could not be punished as they deserve, when I 
 heard his voice approaching nearer. He had turned 
 the path, and soon ap- 
 peared before me at 
 the top of the slope. 
 
 The first glance, 
 and his first words, 
 explained everything 
 to me. In place of 
 what I had taken for 
 the furious tones and 
 terrible looks of an 
 angry man, and the 
 attitude of a fright- 
 ened victim, I had 
 before me only an 
 honest citizen, who 
 
 squinted and stuttered, but who was explaining the 
 management of silk-worms to his attentive daughter.
 
 !86 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 I turned homeward, smiling at my mistake ; but be- 
 fore I reached my faubourg I saw a crowd running, I 
 heard calls for help, and every finger pointed in the 
 same direction to a distant column of flame. A manu- 
 factory had taken fire, and everybody was rushing for- 
 ward to assist in extinguishing it. 
 
 I hesitated. Night was coming on ; I felt tired ; a 
 favourite book was awaiting me : I thought there would 
 be no want of help, and I went on my way. 
 
 Just before I had erred from want of consideration ; 
 now it was from selfishness and cowardice. 
 
 But what ! have I not on a thousand other occasions 
 forgotten the duties which bind us to our fellow-men? 
 Is this the first time I have avoided paying society what 
 I owe it ? Have I not always behaved to my compan- 
 ions with injustice, and like the lion ? Have I not 
 claimed successively every share ? If any one is so ill- 
 advised as to ask me to return some little portion, I get 
 provoked, I am angry, I try to escape from it by every 
 means. How many times, when I have perceived a 
 beggar sitting huddled up at the end of the street, have 
 I not gone out of my way, for fear that compassion 
 would impoverish me by forcing me to be charitable ! 
 How often have I doubted the misfortunes of others, 
 that I might with justice harden my heart against them ? 
 With what satisfaction have 1 sometimes verified the 
 vices of the poor man, in order to show that his misery 
 is the punishment he deserves ! 
 
 Oh ! let us not go further let us not go further ! I 
 interrupted the doctor's examination, but how much
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. ^7 
 
 sadder is this one ! We pity the diseases of the body ; 
 we shudder at those of the soul. 
 
 I was happily disturbed in my reverie by my neigh- 
 bour, the old soldier. 
 
 Now I think of it, I seem always to have seen, during 
 my fever, the figure of this good old man, sometimes 
 leaning against my bed, and sometimes sitting at his 
 table, surrounded by his sheets of pasteboard. 
 
 He has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire of 
 green paper, and his great scissors. I called him by his 
 name ; he uttered a joyful exclamation, and came near 
 me. 
 
 " Well ! so the bullet is found again ! " cried he, tak- 
 ing my two hands into the maimed one which was left 
 him ; " it has not been without trouble, I can tell you : 
 the campaign has been long enough to win two clasps 
 in. I have seen no few fellows with the fever batter 
 windmills during my hospital days : at Leipsic, I had a 
 neighbour who fancied a chimney was on fire in his 
 stomach, and who was always calling for the fire-en- 
 gines ; but the third day it all went out of itself. But 
 with you it has lasted twenty-eight days as long as one 
 of the Little Corporal's campaigns." 
 
 " I am not mistaken, then ; you were near me ? " 
 
 " Well ! I had only to cross the passage. This left 
 hand has not made you a bad nurse for want of the 
 right ; but, bah ! you did not know what hand gave you 
 drink, and it did not prevent that beggar of a fever 
 from beiner drowned for all the world like Poniatowski 
 
 O 
 
 in the Elster."
 
 1 88 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 The old soldier began to laugh, and I, feeling too 
 much affected to speak, pressed his hand against my 
 breast. He saw my emotion, and hastened to put an 
 end to it. 
 
 " By the by, you know that from to-day you have a 
 right to draw your rations again," resumed he gaily ; 
 " four meals, like the German meinherrs nothing more \. 
 The doctor is your house steward." 
 
 " We must find the cook, too," replied I, with a smile. 
 
 " She is found," said the veteran. 
 
 " Who is she? " 
 
 " Genevieve." 
 
 " The fruit-woman ? " 
 
 " While I am talking she is cooking for you, neigh- 
 bour ; and do not fear her sparing either butter or 
 trouble. As long as life and death were fighting for 
 you, the honest woman passed her time in going up 
 and down stairs to learn which way the battle went. 
 And, stay, I am sure this is she." 
 
 In fact we heard steps in the passage, and he went 
 to open the door. 
 
 " Oh, well ! " continued he, " it is Mother Millot, our 
 portress, another of your good friends, neighbour, and 
 whose poultices I recommend to you. Come in, Mother 
 Millot come in ; we are quite bonny boys this morn- 
 ing, and ready to step a minuet if we had our dancing- 
 shoes." 
 
 The portress came in, quite delighted. She brought 
 my linen, washed and mended by herself, with a little 
 bottle of Spanish wine, the gift of her sailor son, and
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. ^Q 
 
 kept for great occasions. I would have thanked her, 
 but the good woman imposed silence upon me, under 
 the pretext that the doctor had forbidden me to speak. 
 I saw her arrange everything in my drawers, the neat 
 appearance of which struck me ; an attentive hand had 
 evidently been there, and day by day put straight the 
 unavoidable disorder consequent on sickness. 
 
 As she finished, Genevieve arrived with my dinner ; 
 she was followed by Mother Denis, the milkwoman over 
 the way, who had learned, at the same time, the danger 
 I had been in, and that I was now beginning to be con- 
 valescent. The good Savoyard brought me a new-laid 
 egg, which she herself wished to see me eat. 
 
 It was necessary to relate minutely all my illness to 
 her. At every detail she uttered loud exclamations ; 
 then, when the portress warned her to be less noisy, she 
 excused herself in a whisper. They made a circle 
 around me to see me eat my dinner ; each mouthful I 
 took was accompanied by their expressions of satisfac- 
 tion and thankfulness. Never had the King of France, 
 when he dined in public, excited such admiration among 
 the spectators. 
 
 As they were taking the dinner away, my colleague, 
 the old cashier, entered in his turn. 
 
 I could not prevent my heart beating as I recog- 
 nised him. How would the heads of the firm look upon 
 my absence, and what did he come to tell me ? 
 
 I waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to speak ; 
 but he sat down by me, took my hand, and began re- 
 joicing over my recovery, without saying a word about
 
 190 
 
 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 
 
 our masters. I could not endure this uncertainty any 
 longer. 
 
 "And the Messieurs Durmer," asked I, hesitatingly, 
 " how have they taken the interruption to my work ? " 
 
 " There has been no interruption," replied the old 
 clerk, quietly. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " Each one in the office took a share of your duty ; 
 all has gone on as usual, and the Messieurs Durmer have 
 perceived no difference." 
 
 This was too much. After so many instances of 
 affection, this filled up the measure. I could not restrain 
 my tears. 
 
 Thus the few services I had been able to do for 
 others had been acknowledged by them a hundredfold ! 
 I had sown a little seed, and every grain had fallen on 
 good ground, and brought forth a whole sheaf. Ah ! 
 this completes the lesson the doctor gave me. If it is 
 true that the diseases, whether of the mind or body, are 
 the fruit of our follies and our vices, sympathy and 
 affection are also the rewards of our having done our 
 duty. Every one of us, with God's help, and within 
 the narrow limits of human capability, himself makes 
 his own disposition, character, and permanent condition. 
 
 Everybody is gone ; the old soldier has brought me 
 back my flowers and my birds, and they are my only 
 companions. The setting sun reddens my half-closed cur- 
 tains with its last rays. My brain is clear, and my heart 
 lighter. A thin mist floats before my eyes, and I feel
 
 THE END OF THE YEAR. l g l 
 
 myself in that happy state which precedes a refreshing 
 sleep. 
 
 Yonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in her 
 drapery of a thousand changing colours, and with her 
 withered garland, again appears before me ; but this 
 time I hold out my hand to her with a grateful smile. 
 
 "Adieu, beloved Year ! whom I but now unjustly 
 accused. That which I have suffered must not be laid 
 to thee ; for thou wast but a tract through which God 
 had marked out my road a ground where I had reaped 
 the harvest I had sown. I will love thee, thou wayside 
 shelter, for those hours of happiness thou hast seen me 
 enjoy ; I will love thee even for the suffering thou hast 
 seen me endure. Neither happiness nor suffering came 
 from thee ; but thou hast been the scene for them. 
 Descend again then, in peace, into eternity, and be blest, 
 thou who hast left me experience in the place of youth, 
 sweet memories instead of past time, and gratitude as 
 payment for good offices."
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF.