left their mark upon her, to have taken her
out of the present into a life beyond.

This sad flower belonged wholly to Toulon, to the Toulon of that day.
To understand her better we must remember what that town is and what
it was.

Toulon is a thoroughfare, a landing-place, the entrance of an immense
harbour and a huge arsenal. The sense of this carries the traveller
away, and prevents his seeing Toulon itself. There is a town however
there, indeed an ancient city. It contains two different sets of
people, the stranger functionaries, and the genuine Toulonnese, who
are far from friendly to the former, regarding them with envy, and
often roused to rebellion by the swaggering of the naval officers. All
these differences were concentred in the gloomy streets of a town in
those days choked up within its narrow girdle of fortifications. The
most peculiar feature about this small dark town is, that it lies
exactly between two broad seas of light, between the marvellous mirror
of its roadstead and its glorious amphitheatre of mountains,
baldheaded, of a dazzling grey, that blinds you in the noonday sun.
All the gloomier look the streets themselves. Such as do not lead
straight to the harbour and draw some light therefrom, are plunged at
all hours in deep gloom. Filthy byeways, and small tradesmen with
shops ill-furnished, invisible to anyone coming for the day, such is
the general aspect of the place. The interior forms a maze of passages
in which you may find plenty of churches, and old convents now turned
into barracks. Copious kennels, laden and foul with sewage water, run
down in torrents. The air is almost stagnant, and in so dry a climate
you are surprised at seeing so much moisture.

In front of the new theatre a passage called La Rue de l'Hopital leads
from the narrow Rue Royale into the narrow Rue des Cannoniers. It
might almost be called a blind alley. The sun, however, just looks
down upon it at noon, but, finding the place so dismal, passes on
forthwith, and leaves the passage to its wonted darkness.

Among these gloomy dwellings the smallest was that of the Sister
Cadiere, a retail dealer, or huckster. There was no entrance but by
the shop, and only one room on each floor. The Cadieres were honest
pious folk, and Madame Cadiere the mirror of excellence itself. These
good people were not altogether poor. Besides their small dwelling in
the town, they too, like most of their fellow-townsmen, had a
country-hous