t--"

"I have no longer an uncle Cardot," replied Oscar, who related the scene
at the rue de Vendome.

Madame Clapart, feeling her legs give way under the weight of her body,
staggered to a chair in the dining-room, where she fell as if struck by
lightning.

"All the miseries together!" she said, as she fainted.

Moreau took the poor mother in his arms, and carried her to the bed in
her chamber. Oscar remained motionless, as if crushed.

"There is nothing left for you," said Moreau, coming back to him, "but
to make yourself a soldier. That idiot of a Clapart looks to me as
though he couldn't live three months, and then your mother will be
without a penny. Ought I not, therefore, to reserve for her the little
money I am able to give? It was impossible to tell you this before her.
As a soldier, you'll eat plain bread and reflect on life such as it is
to those who are born into it without fortune."

"I may get a lucky number," said Oscar.

"Suppose you do, what then? Your mother has well fulfilled her duty
towards you. She gave you an education; she placed you on the right
road, and secured you a career. You have left it. Now, what can you do?
Without money, nothing; as you know by this time. You are not a man who
can begin a new career by taking off your coat and going to work in your
shirt-sleeves with the tools of an artisan. Besides, your mother loves
you, and she would die to see you come to that."

Oscar sat down and no longer restrained his tears, which flowed
copiously. At last he understood this language, so completely
unintelligible to him ever since his first fault.

"Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting
the profundity of that cruel sentence.

"My fate will soon be decided," said Oscar. "I draw my number the day
after to-morrow. Between now and then I will decide upon my future."

Moreau, deeply distressed in spite of his stern bearing, left the
household in the rue de la Cerisaie to its despair.

Three days later Oscar drew the number twenty-seven. In the interests of
the poor lad the former steward of Presles had the courage to go to the
Comte de Serizy and ask for his influence to get Oscar into the cavalry.
It happened that the count's son, having left the Ecole Polytechnique
rather low in his class, was appointed, as a favor, sub-lieutenant in
a regiment of cavalry commanded by the Duc de Maufrigneuse. Oscar had,
therefore, in his great misfortune, the small luc