s, reformers, apostles,
politicians, aesthetes, and even babblers in search of ears more or less
complaisant that would listen to them, met together. Any one might come
who wished, and if one did not enter there exactly as one would enter an
ordinary hotel, it was sufficient to be brought by an habitue in order
to have the right to a pipe, some beer, and to speak.

One of the habitues, Brigard, was a species of apostle, who had acquired
celebrity by practising in his daily life the ideas that he professed
and preached. Comte de Brigard by birth, he began by renouncing his
title, which made him a vassal of the respect of men and of social
conventions; an instructor of law, he could easily have made a thousand
or twelve hundred francs a month, but he arranged the number and the
price of his lessons so that each day brought him only ten francs in
order that he might not be a slave to money; living with a woman whom he
loved, he had always insisted, although he had two daughters, on
living with her 'en union libre', and in not acknowledging his children
legally, because the law debased the ties which attached him to them and
lessened his duties; it was conscience that sanctioned these duties; and
nature, like conscience, made him the most faithful of lovers, the best,
the most affectionate, the most tender of fathers. Tall, proud, carrying
in his person and manners the native elegance of his race, he dressed
like the porter at the corner, only replacing the blue velvet by
chestnut velvet, a less frivolous color. Living in Clamart for twenty
years, he always came to Paris on foot, and the only concessions that he
made to conventionality or to his comfort were to wear sabots in winter,
and to carry his vest on his arm in summer.

Thus organized, he must have disciples, and he sought them
everywhere--in the streets, where he buttonholed those he was able to
snatch under the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens, and on Wednesday
at the house of his old comrade Crozat. How many he had had! But,
unfortunately, the greater number turned out badly. Several became
ministers; others accepted high government positions for life; some
handled millions of francs; two were at Noumea; one preached in the
pulpit of Notre Dame.

One afternoon in October the little parlor was full; the end of the
summer vacation had brought back the habitues, and for the first time
the number was nearly large enough to open a profitable discussion.
Crozat, near