enough to ask myself whither I was going,
and for what.

The machinery of government to which I belonged was annihilated and
destroyed; they who had guided and controlled it were gone; and there
I stood alone, friendless, and without a home in that vast city,
not knowing which way to turn me. I wandered into the garden of the
Tuileries, and sat down upon a bench in one of the less-frequented
alleys. The cries and shouts of the populace rung faintly in my ear, and
the noises of the city came dulled and indistinct by distance. From the
quiet habits of my simple life, I had scarcely learned anything whatever
of Paris. My acquaintances were limited to the few I had seen at the
bureau, and these I only met when there. My means were too scanty to
admit of even the cheapest pleasures; and up to this my existence had
been one uniform but contented poverty. Even this humble provision was
now withdrawn from me. What was I to do? Was there a career by which I
could earn my bread? I knew of none save daily labor with my hands; and
where to seek for even this I did not know. In my little lodging behind
the bureau I possessed a few articles of clothes and some books; these,
if sold, would support me for a week or two; and then--ay, then! But who
can tell? thought I: a day has marred,--who knows but another day may
make my fortune?

It was night when I turned homeward. To my surprise, the stair was not
lit up as usual, and it was only after repeated knockings that the door
was opened to me, and old Lizette, my landlady's servant, with a voice
broken by sobs, bade me pass in quietly, and to make no noise. I asked
eagerly if any misfortune had occurred, and heard that Monsieur Bernois,
my landlord, had been mortally wounded in the affray of the night
before, and was then lying at the point of death.

"Is it the surgeon, Lizette?" cried Marguerite, a little girl of about
fourteen, and whose gentle "Good-day" had been the only thing like
welcome I had ever heard during my stay there; "is it the surgeon?"

"Helas, no, mademoiselle, it is the lodger!"

I had not even a name for them! I was simply the occupant of a solitary
chamber, for whom none cared or thought; and yet at that instant I
felt my isolation the greatest blessing of Heaven, and would not have
exchanged my desolate condition for all the ties of family!

"Oh, sir," cried Marguerite, "have pity on us, and come to papa. He is
bleeding on the bed here, and none of us know h