tious
dreams. Protests, levies, police-raids, all our books in the custody of
the examining magistrate, the Governor a fugitive, our director
Bois-l'Hery at Mazas, our director Monpavon disappeared. My head is in a
whirl with all these disasters. And to think that, if I had followed the
warnings of sound common-sense, I should have been tranquilly settled at
Montbars six months ago, cultivating my little vineyard, with no other
preoccupation than watching the grapes grow round and turn to the color
of gold in the pleasant Burgundian sunshine, and picking from the vines,
after a shower, the little gray snails that make such an excellent
fricassee. With the results of my economy I would have built, on the
high land at the end of the vineyard, on a spot that I can see at this
moment, a stone summer-house like M. Chalmette's, so convenient for an
afternoon nap, while the quail are singing all around among the vines.
But no, constantly led astray by treacherous illusions, I longed to make
a fortune, to speculate, to try banking operations on a grand scale, to
tie my fortune to the chariot of the successful financiers of the day;
and now here I am at the most melancholy stage of my history, clerk in a
ruined counting-house, intrusted with the duty of answering a horde of
creditors, of shareholders drunk with rage, who pour out the vilest
insults upon my white hairs and would fain hold me responsible for the
Nabob's ruin and the governor's flight. As if I were not as cruelly hit
myself, with my four years' back pay which I lose once more, and my
seven thousand francs of money advanced, all of which I intrusted to
that villain, Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio.

But it was written that I should drink the cup of humiliation and
mortification to the dregs. Was I not forced to appear before the
examining magistrate, I, Passajon, formerly apparitor to the Faculty,
with my record of thirty years of faithful service and the ribbon of an
officer of the Academy! Oh! when I saw myself ascending that stairway at
the Palais de Justice, so long and broad, with no rail to cling to, I
felt my head going round and my legs giving way under me. That was when
I had a chance to reflect, as I passed through those halls, black with
lawyers and judges, with here and there a high green door, behind which
I could hear the impressive sounds of courts in session; and up above,
in the corridor where the offices of the examining magistrates are,
during the hour