this preference, was an excellent mother. She
loved Joseph, though not blindly; she simply was unable to understand
him. Joseph adored his mother; Philippe let his mother adore him.
Towards her, the dragoon softened his military brutality; but he never
concealed the contempt he felt for Joseph,--expressing it, however, in
a friendly way. When he looked at his brother, weak and sickly as he
was at seventeen years of age, shrunken with determined toil, and
over-weighted with his powerful head, he nicknamed him "Cub." Philippe's
patronizing manners would have wounded any one less carelessly
indifferent than the artist, who had, moreover, a firm belief in the
goodness of heart which soldiers hid, he thought, beneath a brutal
exterior. Joseph did not yet know, poor boy, that soldiers of genius are
as gentle and courteous in manner as other superior men in any walk of
life. All genius is alike, wherever found.

"Poor boy!" said Philippe to his mother, "we mustn't plague him; let him
do as he likes."

To his mother's eyes the colonel's contempt was a mark of fraternal
affection.

"Philippe will always love and protect his brother," she thought to
herself.

CHAPTER III

In 1816, Joseph obtained his mother's permission to convert the garret
which adjoined his attic room into an atelier, and Madame Descoings gave
him a little money for the indispensable requirements of the painter's
trade;--in the minds of the two widows, the art of painting was nothing
but a trade. With the feeling and ardor of his vocation, the lad himself
arranged his humble atelier. Madame Descoings persuaded the owner of the
house to put a skylight in the roof. The garret was turned into a vast
hall painted in chocolate-color by Joseph himself. On the walls he hung
a few sketches. Agathe contributed, not without reluctance, an iron
stove; so that her son might be able to work at home, without, however,
abandoning the studio of Gros, nor that of Schinner.

The constitutional party, supported chiefly by officers on half-pay
and the Bonapartists, were at this time inciting "emeutes" around the
Chamber of Deputies, on behalf of the Charter, though no one actually
wanted it. Several conspiracies were brewing. Philippe, who dabbled
in them, was arrested, and then released for want of proof; but the
minister of war cut short his half-pay by putting him on the active
list,--a step which might be called a form of discipline. France was no
longer safe; P