nd of sordid drudgery, the writing of articles for dictionaries,
the copying of manuscripts, and even the addressing of newspaper
wrappers, on the fruits of which the household barely contrived to live,
in a little lodging in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

It was there that Marguerite grew up. Leroi, embittered by injustice and
suffering, predicted the advent of a Republic which would avenge the
follies of the Empire, and a reign of science which would sweep away the
deceptive and cruel divinity of religious dogmas. On the other hand,
Agathe's religious faith had collapsed at Geneva, at sight of the narrow
and imbecile practices of Calvinism, and all that she retained of it was
the old Protestant leaven of rebellion. She had become at once the head
and the arm of the house; she went for her husband's work, took it back
when completed, and even did much of it herself, whilst, at the same
time, performing her house duties, and rearing and educating her
daughter. The latter, who attended no school, was indebted for all she
learnt to her father and mother, on whose part there was never any
question of religious instruction. Through contact with her husband,
Madame Leroi had lost all belief, and her Protestant heredity inclining
her to free inquiry and examination, she had arranged for herself a kind
of peaceful atheism, based on paramount principles of human duty and
justice, which she applied courageously, irrespective of all social
conventionalities. The long iniquity of her husband's fate, the
undeserved misfortunes which struck her through him and her daughter,
ended by endowing her with wonderful fortitude and devotion, which made
her, whether as a judge, a manager, or a consoler, a woman of
incomparable energy and nobleness of character.

It was in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince that Guillaume became acquainted
with the Leroi family, after the war of 1870. On the same floor as their
little lodging he occupied a large room, where he devoted himself
passionately to his studies. At the outset there was only an occasional
bow, for Guillaume's neighbours were very proud and very grave, leading
their life of poverty in fierce silence and retirement. Then intercourse
began with the rendering of little services, such as when the young man
procured the ex-professor a commission to write a few articles for a new
encyclopaedia. But all at once came the catastrophe: Leroi died in his
armchair one evening while his daughter was wheeling