tantly admired the apartment, the
furniture and the library. Out of this admiration grew the desire to
possess these beautiful things. It had been impossible for the Abbe
Birotteau to stifle this desire; though it often made him suffer
terribly when he reflected that the death of his best friend could
alone satisfy his secret covetousness, which increased as time went
on. The Abbe Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not rich. Both
were sons of peasants; and their slender savings had been spent in the
mere costs of living during the disastrous years of the Revolution.
When Napoleon restored the Catholic worship the Abbe Chapeloud was
appointed canon of the cathedral and Birotteau was made vicar of it.
Chapeloud then went to board with Mademoiselle Gamard. When Birotteau
first came to visit his friend, he thought the arrangement of the
rooms excellent, but he noticed nothing more. The outset of this
concupiscence of chattels was very like that of a true passion, which
often begins, in a young man, with cold admiration for a woman whom he
ends in loving forever.

The apartment, reached by a stone staircase, was on the side of the
house that faced south. The Abbe Troubert occupied the ground-floor,
and Mademoiselle Gamard the first floor of the main building, looking
on the street. When Chapeloud took possession of his rooms they were
bare of furniture, and the ceilings were blackened with smoke. The
stone mantelpieces, which were very badly cut, had never been painted.
At first, the only furniture the poor canon could put in was a bed, a
table, a few chairs, and the books he possessed. The apartment was
like a beautiful woman in rags. But two or three years later, an old
lady having left the Abbe Chapeloud two thousand francs, he spent that
sum on the purchase of an oak bookcase, the relic of a chateau pulled
down by the Bande Noire, the carving of which deserved the admiration
of all artists. The abbe made the purchase less because it was very
cheap than because the dimensions of the bookcase exactly fitted the
space it was to fill in his gallery. His savings enabled him to
renovate the whole gallery, which up to this time had been neglected
and shabby. The floor was carefully waxed, the ceiling whitened, the
wood-work painted to resemble the grain and knots of oak. A long table
in ebony and two cabinets by Boulle completed the decoration, and gave
to this gallery a certain air that was full of character. In the
cour