your country for protection for yourself and
your children. 'Ah,' say the lawyers, 'yours is a hard case, and your
husband is a worthless vagabond, and you shall have justice. But then
you must pay five hundred francs for that same justice,--five hundred
francs, mind; precisely all your utmost labour can obtain to nourish
yourself and family for a year. I tell you what, Jeanne, all this proves
the truth of the old saying, that 'There are but two sorts of
people,--those who are hanged, and those who deserve to be!'"

Rigolette, alone and pensively inclined, had not lost a word of all that
tale of woe breathed by the poor, suffering, and patient wife into her
brother's ear; while her naturally kind heart deeply sympathised with
all she heard, and she fully resolved upon relating the whole history to
Rodolph the very first time she saw him, feeling quite sure of his ready
and benevolent aid in succouring them. Deeply interested in the mournful
fate of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, she could not take her eyes from
the poor woman's face, and was endeavouring to draw a little closer to
her; but unluckily, just at that moment, a fresh visitant, entering the
room, inquired for a prisoner, and while the person he wished to see was
sent for, he very coolly seated himself on the bench between Jeanne and
the grisette, who, at the sight of the individual who so unceremoniously
interrupted her making closer acquaintance with her neighbour, felt a
degree of surprise almost amounting to fear, for in him she recognised
one of the bailiffs sent by Jacques Ferrand to arrest poor Morel, the
lapidary. This circumstance, recalling as it did to the mind of
Rigolette the implacable enemy of Germain, redoubled her sadness, which
had been in some manner diverted while listening to the touching recital
of the unfortunate sister of Pique-Vinaigre.

Retreating from the fresh arrival as far as she could, the grisette
leaned her back against the wall, and once more relapsed into her
mournful ruminations.

"Look here, Jeanne!" cried Pique-Vinaigre, whose mirthful,
pleasure-loving countenance was suddenly overcast by a deep gloom; "I am
by nature neither very strong nor very courageous; but, certainly, if I
had chanced to have been by when your husband so shamefully treated you,
I don't think I should have let him slip through my fingers without
leaving my mark. But you were too good for him, and you put up with more
than you ought!"

"Why, what w