researches made in these latter days are owing; for I must tell you that
they class my daughter's singular state as a form of neurosis. At the
last consultation of these gentlemen they decided to stop all medicines,
to let nature alone and study it. Since then I have had but one doctor,
and he is the doctor who attends the poor of this quarter. We do nothing
for her now but alleviate pain, for we know not the cause of it."

Here the old man stopped as if overcome with his harrowing confidence.

"For the last five years," he continued, "my daughter alternates between
revivals and relapses, but no new phenomena have appeared. She suffers
more or less from the varied nervous attacks I have briefly described
to you, but the paralysis of the legs and the derangement of the natural
functions are constant. The poverty into which we fell, and which alas!
is only increasing, obliged me to leave the rooms that I took, in 1829,
in the faubourg du Roule. My daughter cannot endure the fatigue of
moving; I came near losing her when I brought her to Paris, and again
when I removed her to this house. Here my worst financial misfortunes
have come upon me. After thirty years in the public service I was made
to wait four years before my pension was granted. I have only received
it during the last six months and even then the new government has
sternly cut it down to the minimum."

Godefroid made a gesture of surprise which seemed to ask for a more
complete confidence. The old man so understood it, for he answered
immediately, casting a reproachful glance to heaven:--

"I am one of the thousand victims of political reaction. I conceal
my name because it is the mark for many a revenge. If the lessons of
experience were not always wasted from one generation to another I
should warn you, young man, never to adopt the sternness of any policy.
Not that I regret having done my duty; my conscience is perfectly clear
on that score; but the powers of to-day have not that solidarity which
formerly bound all governments together as governments, no matter how
different they might be; if to-day they reward zealous agents it is
because they are afraid of them. The instrument they have used, no
matter how faithful it has been, is, sooner or later, cast aside. You
see in me one of the firmest supporters of the government of the elder
branch of the Bourbons, as I was later of the Imperial power; yet here I
am in penury! Since I am too proud to beg, they