twelve hundred from the Mont-de-piete (for they
raised my salary), and five hundred which I obtained from Monsieur Cesar
Birotteau, perfumer, for keeping his books in the evening. Thus, not
only did I manage to get along comfortably, but I laid by eight hundred
francs a year. At the beginning of 1814 I invested nine thousand francs
of my savings at forty francs in the Funds, and thus I was sure of
sixteen hundred francs a year for my old age. By that time I had fifteen
hundred a year from the Mont-de-piete, six hundred for my book-keeping,
sixteen hundred from the Funds; in all, three thousand seven hundred
francs a year. I took a lodging in the rue de Seine, and lived a little
better. My place had brought me into relations with many unfortunates.
For the last twelve years I had known better than any man whatsoever the
misery of the poor. Once or twice I had been able to do a real service.
I felt a vivid pleasure when I found that out of ten persons relieved,
one or two households had been put on their feet. It came into my mind
that benevolence ought not to consist in throwing money to those who
suffered. 'Doing charity,' to use that common expression, seemed to me
too often a premium offered to crime. I began to study the question. I
was then fifty years of age, and my life was nearly over. 'Of what good
am I?' thought I. 'To whom can I leave my savings? When I have furnished
my rooms handsomely, and found a good cook, and made my life suitable in
all respects, what then?--how shall I employ my time?' Eleven years of
revolution, and fifteen years of poverty, had, as I may say, eaten up
the most precious parts of my life,--used it up in sterile toil for my
own individual preservation. No man at the age of fifty could spring
from that obscure, repressed condition to a brilliant future; but every
man could be of use. I understood by this time that watchful care and
wise counsels have tenfold greater value than money given; for the poor,
above all things, need a guide, if only in the labor they do for others,
for speculators are never lacking to take advantage of them. Here I saw
before me both an end and an occupation, not to speak of the exquisite
enjoyments obtained by playing in a miniature way the role of
Providence."

"And to-day you play it in a grand way, do you not?" asked Godefroid,
eagerly.

"Ah! you want to know everything," said the old man. "No, no! Would you
believe it," he continued after this interruptio