dre distributes his affections between the three girls.
Manette, though she ends as his wife, is more of a sister at first;
Adolphine is an adored and unhoped-for idol; while Lucile (it is hardly
necessary to say that it is in the scenes with her that "candour" comes
in) is at first a protectress, then a schoolmistress of the school of
Cupid, in process of time a mistress in the other sense, and always a
very good-natured and unselfish helper. In fact, Manette is so
preternaturally good (she can't even be jealous in a sufficiently human
way), Adolphine so prettily and at last tragically null, that one really
feels inclined to observe to Andre, if he were worth it, the recondite
quotation

Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori,

though perhaps seven years _is_ a long interval in the first third of
life.

[Sidenote: _Jean._]

A still better instance of the modified _berquinade_--indeed, except for
the absence of riotous fun, one of the best of all Paul de Kock's
books--is _Jean_, also an example of his middle and ripest period. If
translated into English it might have for second title "or, The History
of a Good Lout." The career of Jean Durand (one of the French
equivalents for John Brown or Jones or Robinson) we have from the moment
of, and indeed a little before, his birth to that crowning of a virtuous
young Frenchman's hopes, which consists in his marrying a pretty,
amiable, sensible, and well-to-do young widow.[49] Jean is the son of a
herbalist father who is an eccentric but not a fool, and a mother who
is very much of a fool but not in the least eccentric. The child, who is
born in the actual presence (result of the usual farcical opening) of a
corporal and four fusiliers, is put out to nurse at Saint-Germain in the
way they did then, brought home and put out to school, but, in
consequence of his mother's absurd spoiling, allowed to learn absolutely
nothing, and (though he is not exactly a bad fellow) to get into very
bad company. With two of the choicest specimens of this he runs away
(having, again by his mother's folly, been trusted with a round sum in
gold) at the age of sixteen, and executes a sort of picaresque journey
in the environs of Paris, till he is brought to his senses through an
actual robbery committed by the worst of his companions. He returns home
to find his father dead: and having had a substantial income left him
already by an aunt, with the practical control of his mother's
resources, he g