he leaned over, and the old friends made signs to each
other, shaking their heads, as if to say:

"This looks bad."

I hastened to regulate the clock and depart, for to see the poor old
man in such a plight made my heart bleed.

When I arrived at home, I found Monsieur Goulden at his work-bench.

"You are returned, Joseph," said he. "Well?"

"Well, Monsieur Goulden, you had reason to stay away; it is terrible."

And I told him all in detail.

"Yes; I knew it all," said he, sadly, "but our misfortunes are only
beginning; these Prussians and Austrians and Russians and
Spaniards--all the nations we have been beating since eighteen hundred
and four, are now taking advantage of our ill luck to fall upon us. We
gave them kings and queens they did not know from Adam nor Eve, and
whom they did not want, it seems, and now they are going to bring back
the old ones with all their trains of nobles, and after pouring out our
blood for the Emperor's brothers, we are about losing all we gained by
the Revolution. Instead of being first among the first we will be last
among the last. While you were away I was thinking of all this; it is
unavoidable--We relied upon soldiers alone, and now that we have no
more, we are nothing."

He arose. I set the table, and, whilst we were dining in silence, the
bells of the steeples began to ring.

"Some one is dead in the city," said Monsieur Goulden.

"Indeed? I did not hear of it."

Ten minutes after, the Rabbi Rose came in to have a glass put in his
watch.

"Who is dead?" asked Monsieur Goulden.

"Poor old Standard-bearer."

"What! Father Feral?"

"Yes, near an hour ago. Father Desmarets and several others tried to
comfort him; at last he asked them to read to him the last letter of
his son George, the commandant of dragoons, in which he says that next
spring he hoped to embrace his father with a colonel's epaulettes. As
the old man heard this, he tried to rise, but fell back with his head
upon his knees. That letter had broken his heart."

Monsieur Goulden made no remark on the news.

"Here is your watch, Monsieur Rose," said he, handing it back to the
rabbi; "it is twelve sous."

Monsieur Rose departed, and we finished our dinner in silence.

V

A few days after, the gazette announced that the Emperor was in Paris,
and that the King of Rome and the Empress Marie-Louise were about to be
crowned. Monsieur the Mayor, his coadjutor and the municipal
council