ployment--"

"And serve _these others_!" cried the widow. "Oh! I will never give
him that advice."

"You are wrong," said Du Bruel. "My son has just got an appointment
through the Duc de Navarreins. The Bourbons are very good to those who
are sincere in rallying to them. Your son could be appointed
lieutenant-colonel to a regiment."

"They only appoint nobles in the cavalry. Philippe would never rise to
be a colonel," said Madame Descoings.

Agathe, much alarmed, entreated Philippe to travel abroad, and put
himself at the service of some foreign power who, she thought, would
gladly welcome a staff officer of the Emperor.

"Serve a foreign nation!" cried Philippe, with horror.

Agathe kissed her son with enthusiasm.

"His father all over!" she exclaimed.

"He is right," said Joseph. "France is too proud of her heroes to let
them be heroic elsewhere. Napoleon may return once more."

However, to satisfy his mother, Philippe took up the dazzling idea of
joining General Lallemand in the United States, and helping him to
found what was called the Champ d'Asile, one of the most disastrous
swindles that ever appeared under the name of national subscription.
Agathe gave ten thousand francs to start her son, and she went to
Havre to see him off. By the end of 1817, she had accustomed herself
to live on the six hundred francs a year which remained to her from
her property in the Funds; then, by a lucky chance, she made a good
investment of the ten thousand francs she still kept of her savings,
from which she obtained an interest of seven per cent. Joseph wished
to emulate his mother's devotion. He dressed like a bailiff; wore the
commonest shoes and blue stockings; denied himself gloves, and burned
charcoal; he lived on bread and milk and Brie cheese. The poor lad got
no sympathy, except from Madame Descoings, and from Bixiou, his
student-friend and comrade, who was then making those admirable
caricatures of his, and filling a small office in the ministry.

"With what joy I welcomed the summer of 1818!" said Joseph Bridau in
after-years, relating his troubles; "the sun saved me the cost of
charcoal."

As good a colorist by this time as Gros himself, Joseph now went to
his master for consultation only. He was already meditating a tilt
against classical traditions, and Grecian conventionalities, in short,
against the leading-strings which held down an art to which Nature _as
she is_ belongs, in the omnipotence of her c