The author of this work had a double reason for borrowing thus
largely from the pages of the "Pauvre Jacques." In the first
place, to show that the horrors of the last chapter are far
below reality in their painful details. And secondly, to prove
that, if only viewed in a philanthropic light, the allowing such
a state of things to go on (namely, the exorbitant and illegal
fees both demanded and exacted by certain public functionaries),
frequently acts as a preventive to the exercise of benevolence,
and paralyses the hand of charity. Thus, were a small capital of
1000_f._ collected among kind-hearted individuals, three or four
honest, though unfortunate, artisans might be released from a
prison and restored to their families, by employing the
above-named sum in paying the debts of such as were incarcerated
for amounts varying from 250 to 300_f._! But when the original
debt is increased threefold by the excessive and illegal
expenses, even the most charitable recede from the good work of
delivering a fellow creature, from the impression that
two-thirds of their well-intentioned bounty would only go into
the pockets of pampered sheriffs' officers and their satellites.
And yet no class of unfortunate beings stand more in need of aid
and charitable assistance than the unfortunate class we have
just been speaking of.

CHAPTER XIV.

RIGOLETTE.

Louise, the daughter of the lapidary, was possessed of more than
ordinary loveliness of countenance, a fine, tall, graceful person,
uniting, by the strict regularity of her faultless features and elegance
of her figure, the classic beauty of Juno with the lightness and
elegance assigned to the statue of the hunting Diana. Spite of the
injury her complexion had received from exposure to weather, and the
redness of her well-shaped hands and arms, occasioned by household
labour,--despite even the humble dress she wore, the whole appearance of
Louise Morel was stamped with that indescribable air of grace and
superiority Nature sometimes is pleased to bestow upon the lowly-born,
in preference to the descendant of high lineage.

We shall not attempt to paint the joy, the heartfelt gratitude of this
family, so wondrously preserved from so severe a calamity; even the
recent death of the little girl was forgotten during the first burst of
happiness. Rodolph alone found leisure to remark the extreme paleness
and utter