to be carried to the
cemetery in a sixth-class hearse, and did not honor with his presence the
funeral, which was even prohibited from using the parish road. But the
saintly man was not deterred from swallowing for his dinner that same
day, while thundering against the progress of materialism, tripe cooked
after the Caen fashion, one of Berenice's weekly works of art.

Amedee had now no family, and his friends were dispersed. As a reward for
passing his examinations in law, Madame Roger took her son with her on a
trip to Italy, and they had just left France together.

As to the poor Gerards, just one month after M. Violette's death, the old
engraver died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work; and on that day there
were not fifty francs in the house. Around the open grave where they
lowered the obscure and honest artist, there was only a group of three
women, in black, who were weeping, and Amedee in mourning for his father,
with a dozen of Gerard's old comrades, whose romantic heads had become
gray. The family was obliged to sell at once, in order to get a little
money, what remained of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small paintings,
old presents from artist friends who had become celebrated, and the last
of the ruined knickknacks--indeed, all that constituted the charm of the
house. Then, in order that her eldest daughter might not be so far from
the boarding-school where she was employed as teacher of music, Madame
Gerard went to live in the Rue St.-Pierre, in Montmartre, where they
found a little cheap, first-floor apartment, with a garden as large as
one's hand.

Now that he was reduced to his one hundred and twenty-five francs, Amedee
was obliged to leave his too expensive apartment in the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and to sell the greater part of his family
furniture. He kept only his books and enough to furnish his little room,
perched under the roof of an old house in the Faubourg St.-Jacques.

It was far from Montmartre, so he could not see his friends as often as
he would have liked, those friends whom grief in common had made dearer
than ever to him. One single consolation remained for him--literary work.
He threw himself into it blindly, deadening his sorrow with the fruitful
and wonderful opiate of poetry and dreams. However, he had now begun to
make headway, feeling that he had some thing new to say. He had long ago
thrown into the fire his first poems, awkward imitations of favorite
authors, also his dra