father
and had stayed by my family and brought up a houseful of children in
obscurity, do you suppose you would have been where you are now?"
At this Thiers laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in
a small town in the South of France called Carpentras. There the
old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to the last,
surrounded by a large family of dogs.

Thiers provided at the earliest possible moment for his mother
and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little property
which she had always coveted, near Aix, and taking his mother to
preside over his own home. But Madame Thiers felt out of place in
her son's life, and preferred to return to the property given to
Madame Arnic, where she spent the rest of her days with the old
lady. Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with
his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining together at a
friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was already a cabinet officer.
On leaving together after dinner, they found in the ante-room an
elderly woman plainly and roughly dressed. She was asking for M.
Thiers, who, as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in
his arms, kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to
the poet, cried joyously: "Lamartine, this is my mother!"

In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from her _pension_,
Mademoiselle Dosne, who was co-heiress with her mother and her
father to a great fortune. Unhappily Thiers had fallen first in
love with the mother; but he accepted the daughter instead. The
early married life of Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge
of this state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her
husband, and watched over him as a mother might have watched over a
child. She was an accomplished woman and most careful housekeeper,
and had received an excellent education. She knew many languages,
and turned all English or German documents required by her husband
into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived under
the shadow of a great sorrow.

When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve thousand
francs (about $2,500) for the legal parental consent which is necessary
in a French marriage; but he was by no means anxious to have his
irrepressible parent at his wedding. For three weeks before the
event he hired all the places in all the stage-coaches running
through Carpentras to Lyons.

In 1840 M. Thiers went out of office, in consequence of a