d of which they had distributed so many in the garrets they
had visited. The fact is that this good woman, with her agricultural
appearance and clean but very simple clothes, reminded them of the
charity visits of the College Bourdaloue. They felt between them the
same unknown quality, the same distance, which no remembrance, no
word of their parents had ever helped to bridge. The abbe felt this
constraint, and tried to dispel it--speaking with the tone of voice and
gestures customary to those who always think they are in the pulpit.

"Well, madame, the day has come, the great day when Jansoulet will
confound his enemies--_confundantur hostes mei, quia injuste iniquitatem
fecerunt in me_--because they have unjustly persecuted me."

The old lady bent religiously before the Latin of the Church, but her
face expressed a vague expression of uneasiness at this idea of enemies
and of persecutions.

"These enemies are powerful and numerous, my noble lady, but let us
not be alarmed beyond measure. Let us have confidence in the decrees of
Heaven and in the justice of our cause. God is in the midst of it, it
shall not be overthrown--_in medio ejus non commovebitur_."

A gigantic negro, resplendent with gold braid, interrupted him by
announcing that the bicycles were ready for the daily lesson on the
terrace of the Tuileries. Before setting out, the children again
shook solemnly their grandmother's wrinkled and hardened hand. She
was watching them go, stupefied and oppressed, when all at once, by an
adorable spontaneous movement, the youngest turned back when he had got
to the door and, pushing the great negro aside, came to throw himself
head foremost, like a little buffalo, into Mme. Jansoulet's skirts,
squeezing her to him, while holding out his smooth forehead, covered
with brown curls, with the grace of a child offering its kiss like a
flower. Perhaps this one, nearer the warmth of the nest, the cradling
knees of the nurses with their peasant songs, had felt the maternal
influence, of which the Levantine had deprived him, reach his heart.
The old woman trembled all over with the surprise of this instinctive
embrace.

"Oh! little one, little one," said she, seizing the little silky, curly
head which reminded her so much of another and she kissed it wildly.
Then the child unloosed himself, and ran off without saying anything,
his head moist with hot tears.

Left alone with Cabassu, the mother, comforted by this embrace, a