d Thuillier, in whom the jealousy between the two classes of
the bourgeoisie was fully roused, "take offices away from those fellows
and they'd fall back where they came."

Mademoiselle was knitting with such precipitous haste that she seemed to
be propelled by a steam-engine.

"Take my place, Monsieur Dutocq," said Madame Minard, rising. "My feet
are cold," she added, going to the fire, where the golden ornaments of
her turban made fireworks in the light of the Saint-Aurora wax-candles
that were struggling vainly to light the vast salon.

"He is very small fry, that young substitute," said Madame Minard,
glancing at Mademoiselle Thuillier.

"Small fry!" cried la Peyrade. "Ah, madame! how witty!"

"But madame has so long accustomed us to that sort of thing," said the
handsome Thuillier.

Madame Colleville was examining la Peyrade and comparing him with young
Phellion, who was just then talking to Celeste, neither of them paying
any heed to what was going on around them. This is, certainly, the
right moment to depict the singular personage who was destined to play
a signal part in the Thuillier household, and who fully deserves the
appellation of a great artist.

CHAPTER V. A PRINCIPAL PERSONAGE

There exists in Provence, especially about Avignon, a race of men with
blond or chestnut hair, fair skin, and eyes that are almost tender,
their pupils calm, feeble, or languishing, rather than keen, ardent, or
profound, as they usually are in the eyes of Southerners. Let us remark,
in passing, that among Corsicans, a race subject to fits of anger and
dangerous irascibility, we often meet with fair skins and physical
natures of the same apparent tranquillity. These pale men, rather stout,
with somewhat dim and hazy eyes either green or blue, are the worst
species of humanity in Provence; and Charles-Marie-Theodose de la
Peyrade presents a fine type of that race, the constitution of which
deserves careful examination on the part of medical science and
philosophical physiology. There rises, at times, within such men, a
species of bile,--a bitter gall, which flies to their head and makes
them capable of ferocious actions, done, apparently, in cold blood.
Being the result of an inward intoxication, this sort of dumb violence
seems to be irreconcilable with their quasi-lymphatic outward man, and
the tranquillity of their benignant glance.

Born in the neighborhood of Avignon, the young Provencal whose name we
have ju