common to all those who risk their lives, had
suddenly awakened his licentious temperament. When his service allowed
him to do so, he would go into Paris and spend twenty-four hours there,
profiting by it to have a champagne dinner at Brebant's or Voisin's, in
company with some beautiful girl, and to eat the luxurious dishes of that
time, such as beans, Gruyere cheese, and the great rarity which had been
secretly raised for three months on the fifth floor, a leg of mutton.

One evening Amedee Violette was belated upon the boulevards, and saw
coming out of a restaurant Maurice in full uniform, with one of the
pretty comedienes from the Varietes leaning upon his arm. This meeting
gave Amedee one heart-ache the more. It was for such a husband as this,
then, that Maria, buried in some country place, was probably at this very
time overwhelmed with fears about his safety. It was for this
incorrigible rake that she had disdained her friend from childhood, and
scorned the most delicate, faithful, and tender of lovers.

Finally, to kill time and to flee from solitude, Amedee went to the Cafe
de Seville, but he only found a small group of his former acquaintances
there. No more literary men, or almost none. The "long-haired" ones had
to-day the "regulation cut," and wore divers head-gears, for the most of
the scattered poets carried cartridge-boxes and guns; but some of the
political "beards" had not renounced their old customs; the war and the
fall of the Empire had been a triumph for them, and the fourth of
September had opened every career for them. Twenty of these "beards" had
been provided with prefectures; at least all, or nearly all, of them
occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National
Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid ones,
were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as the thing
may seem today, this commission existed and performed its duties, a
commission according to all rules, with an organized office, a large
china inkstand, stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted upon at the
beginning of each meeting; and, around a table covered with green cloth,
these professional instigators of the Cafe de Seville, these teachers of
insurrection, generously gave the country the benefit of the practical
experience that they had acquired in practising with the game of
dominoes.

The "beards" remaining in Paris were busied with employments more or less