e Orleans highroad. When Agathe saw the Luxembourg, to which
Philippe had been transferred, she could not refrain from saying,--

"If it were not for the Allies he would never be there!"

Many sons would have made an impatient gesture and smiled with pity;
but the artist, who was alone with his mother in the coupe, caught her
in his arms and pressed her to his heart, exclaiming:--

"Oh, mother! you are a mother just as Raphael was a painter. And you
will always be a fool of a mother!"

Madame Bridau's mind, diverted before long from her griefs by the
distractions of the journey, began to dwell on the purpose of it. She
re-read the letter of Madame Hochon, which had so stirred up the
lawyer Desroches. Struck with the words "concubine" and "slut," which
the pen of a septuagenarian as pious as she was respectable had used
to designate the woman now in process of getting hold of Jean-Jacques
Rouget's property, struck also with the word "imbecile" applied to
Rouget himself, she began to ask herself how, by her presence at
Issoudun, she was to save the inheritance. Joseph, poor disinterested
artist that he was, knew little enough about the Code, and his
mother's last remark absorbed his mind.

"Before our friend Desroches sent us off to protect our rights, he
ought to have explained to us the means of doing so," he exclaimed.

"So far as my poor head, which whirls at the thought of Philippe in
prison,--without tobacco, perhaps, and about to appear before the
Court of Peers!--leaves me any distinct memory," returned Agathe, "I
think young Desroches said we were to get evidence of undue influence,
in case my brother has made a will in favor of that--that--woman."

"He is good at that, Desroches is," cried the painter. "Bah! if we can
make nothing of it I'll get him to come himself."

"Well, don't let us trouble our heads uselessly," said Agathe. "When
we get to Issoudun my godmother will tell us what to do."

This conversation, which took place just after Madame Bridau and
Joseph changed coaches at Orleans and entered the Sologne, is
sufficient proof of the incapacity of the painter and his mother to
play the part the inexorable Desroches had assigned to them.

In returning to Issoudun after thirty years' absence, Agathe was about
to find such changes in its manners and customs that it is necessary
to sketch, in a few words, a picture of that town. Without it, the
reader would scarcely understand the heroism displayed