he celebrated atelier of that painter, whence a vast variety
of talent issued in its day, and there he formed the closest intimacy
with Schinner. The return from Elba came; Captain Bridau joined the
Emperor at Lyons, accompanied him to the Tuileries, and was appointed
to the command of a squadron in the dragoons of the Guard. After the
battle of Waterloo--in which he was slightly wounded, and where he won
the cross of an officer of the Legion of honor--he happened to be near
Marshal Davoust at Saint-Denis, and was not with the army of the
Loire. In consequence of this, and through Davoust's intercession, his
cross and his rank were secured to him, but he was placed on half-pay.

Joseph, anxious about his future, studied all through this period with
an ardor which several times made him ill in the midst of these
tumultuous events.

"It is the smell of the paints," Agathe said to Madame Descoings. "He
ought to give up a business so injurious to his health."

However, all Agathe's anxieties were at this time for her son the
lieutenant-colonel. When she saw him again in 1816, reduced from the
salary of nine thousand francs (paid to a commander in the dragoons of
the Imperial Guard) to a half-pay of three hundred francs a month, she
fitted up her attic rooms for him, and spent her savings in doing so.
Philippe was one of the faithful Bonapartes of the cafe Lemblin, that
constitutional Boeotia; he acquired the habits, manners, style, and
life of a half-pay officer; indeed, like any other young man of
twenty-one, he exaggerated them, vowed in good earnest a mortal enmity
to the Bourbons, never reported himself at the War department, and
even refused opportunities which were offered to him for employment in
the infantry with his rank of lieutenant-colonel. In his mother's
eyes, Philippe seemed in all this to be displaying a noble character.

"The father himself could have done no more," she said.

Philippe's half-pay sufficed him; he cost nothing at home, whereas all
Joseph's expenses were paid by the two widows. From that moment,
Agathe's preference for Philippe was openly shown. Up to that time it
had been secret; but the persecution of this faithful servant of the
Emperor, the recollection of the wound received by her cherished son,
his courage in adversity, which, voluntary though it were, seemed to
her a glorious adversity, drew forth all Agathe's tenderness. The one
sentence, "He is unfortunate," explained and justifi