ollege and of the library which Cardinal Mazarin presented
to the city of Paris, and which the French Academy was in after days to
inhabit, cast chill shadows over this angle of the street, where the sun
seldom shines, and the north wind blows. The poor ruined widow came to
live on the third floor of a house standing at this damp, dark, cold
corner. Opposite, rose the Institute buildings, in which were the
dens of ferocious animals known to the bourgeoisie under the name of
artists,--under that of tyro, or rapin, in the studios. Into these
dens they enter rapins, but they may come forth prix de Rome. The
transformation does not take place without extraordinary uproar and
disturbance at the time of year when the examinations are going on, and
the competitors are shut up in their cells. To win a prize, they were
obliged, within a given time, to make, if a sculptor, a clay model; if a
painter, a picture such as may be seen at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; if
a musician, a cantata; if an architect, the plans for a public building.
At the time when we are penning the words, this menagerie has already
been removed from these cold and cheerless buildings, and taken to the
elegant Palais des Beaux-Arts, which stands near by.

From the windows of Madame Bridau's new abode, a glance could penetrate
the depths of those melancholy barred cages. To the north, the view was
shut in by the dome of the Institute; looking up the street, the only
distraction to the eye was a file of hackney-coaches, which stood at
the upper end of the rue Mazarin. After a while, the widow put boxes of
earth in front of her windows, and cultivated those aerial gardens that
police regulations forbid, though their vegetable products purify the
atmosphere. The house, which backed up against another fronting on the
rue de Seine, was necessarily shallow, and the staircase wound round
upon itself. The third floor was the last. Three windows to three rooms,
namely, a dining-room, a small salon, and a chamber on one side of the
landing; on the other, a little kitchen, and two single rooms; above, an
immense garret without partitions. Madame Bridau chose this lodging for
three reasons: economy, for it cost only four hundred francs a year,
so that she took a lease of it for nine years; proximity to her sons'
school, the Imperial Lyceum being at a short distance; thirdly, because
it was in the quarter to which she was used.

The inside of the _appartement_ was in keeping