comtat' of Avignon; he came here toward the end
of 1829, to inquire about an uncle whose fortune was said to be
considerable; he discovered the address of the old man only three days
before his death; and the furniture of the deceased merely sufficed to
bury him and pay his debts. A friend of this useless uncle gave a couple
of hundred louis to the poor fortune-hunter, advising him to finish his
legal studies and enter the judiciary career. Those two hundred
louis supported him for three years in Paris, where he lived like
an anchorite. But being unable to discover his unknown friend and
benefactor, the poor student was in abject distress in 1833. He worked
then, like so many other licentiates, in politics and literature, by
which he kept himself for a time above want--for he had nothing to
expect from his family. His father, the youngest brother of the dead
uncle, has eleven other children, who live on a small estate called Les
Canquoelles. He finally obtained a place on a ministerial newspaper,
the manager of which was the famous Cerizet, so celebrated for the
persecutions he met with, under the Restoration, on account of his
attachment to the liberals,--a man whom the new Left will never forgive
for having made his paper ministerial. As the government of these days
does very little to protect even its most devoted servants (witness the
Gisquet affair), the republicans have ended by ruining Cerizet. I tell
you this to explain how it is that Cerizet is now a copying clerk in
my office. Well, in the days when he flourished as managing editor of a
paper directed by the Perier ministry against the incendiary journals,
the 'Tribune' and others, Cerizet, who is a worthy fellow after all,
though he is too fond of women, pleasure, and good living, was very
useful to Theodose, who edited the political department of the paper;
and if it hadn't been for the death of Casimir Perier that young man
would certainly have received an appointment as substitute judge in
Paris. As it was, he dropped back in 1834-35, in spite of his talent;
for his connection with a ministerial journal of course did him harm.
'If it had not been for my religious principles,' he said to me, 'I
should have thrown myself into the Seine.' However, it seems that the
friend of his uncle must have heard of his distress, for again he sent
him a sum of money; enough to complete his terms for the bar; but,
strange to say, he has never known the name or the address of