Gennevilliers*; and so the subscription fund remained open, and, indeed,
no little noise was made over this charitable enterprise, which was
regarded as a complete and peremptory reply to the accusations of those
evilly disposed persons who charged the satiated _bourgeoisie_ with doing
nothing for the workers. But the truth was that a magnificent chapel,
erected in the centre of the site, had absorbed two-thirds of the funds
hitherto collected. Numerous lady patronesses, chosen from all the
"worlds" of Paris--the Baroness Duvillard, the Countess de Quinsac, the
Princess Rosemonde de Harn, and a score of others--were entrusted with
the task of keeping the enterprise alive by dint of collections and fancy
bazaars. But success had been chiefly obtained, thanks to the happy idea
of ridding the ladies of all the weighty cares of organisation, by
choosing as managing director a certain Fonsegue, who, besides being a
deputy and editor of the "Globe" newspaper, was a prodigious promoter of
all sorts of enterprises. And the "Globe" never paused in its propaganda,
but answered the attacks of the revolutionaries by extolling the
inexhaustible charity of the governing classes in such wise that, at the
last elections, the enterprise had served as a victorious electoral
weapon.

* This so-called peninsula lies to the northwest of Paris, and
is formed by the windings of the Seine.--Trans.

However, Camille was walking about with a steaming cup of coffee in her
hand: "Will you take some coffee, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she inquired.

"No, thank you, mademoiselle."

"A glass of Chartreuse then?"

"No, thank you."

Then everybody being served, the Baroness came back and said amiably:
"Come, Monsieur l'Abbe, what do you desire of me?"

Pierre began to speak almost in an undertone, his throat contracting and
his heart beating with emotion. "I have come, madame, to appeal to your
great kindness of heart. This morning, in a frightful house, in the Rue
des Saules, behind Montmartre, I beheld a sight which utterly upset me.
You can have no idea what an abode of misery and suffering it was; its
inmates without fire or bread, the men reduced to idleness because there
is no work, the mothers having no more milk for their babes, the children
barely clad, coughing and shivering. And among all these horrors I saw
the worst, the most abominable of all, an old workman, laid on his back
by age, dying of hunger, huddled on a heap of rags, in a noo