red-hot Republican, sent his little
girl to the Sisters; but he went out every evening with a mysterious
air and left the child alone. The concierge even uttered in a low
voice, with the romantic admiration which that class of people have for
conspirators, the terrible word "secret society," and asserted that the
printer had a musket concealed under his straw bed.

These revelations were of a nature to excite M. Gerard's sympathy in
favor of his neighbor, for the coup d'etat and the proclamation of the
Empire had irritated him very much. Had it not been his melancholy
duty to engrave, the day after the second of December--he must feed his
family first of all--a Bonapartist allegory entitled, "The Uncle and
the Nephew," where one saw France extending its hand to Napoleon I and
Prince Louis, while soaring above the group was an eagle with spreading
wings, holding in one of his claws the cross of the Legion of Honor?

One day the engraver asked his wife, as he lighted his pipe--he had
given up Abd-el-Kader and smoked now a Barbes--if they ought not to
interest themselves a little in the abandoned child. It needed nothing
more to arouse the good woman, who had already said more than once:
"What a pity!" as she saw little Rosine waiting for her father in the
lodge of the concierge, asleep in a chair before the stove. She coaxed
the child to play with her children. Rosine was very pretty, with bright
eyes, a droll little Parisian nose, and a mass of straw-colored curly
hair escaping from her cap. The little rogue let fly quite often some
gutter expression, such as "Hang it!" or "Tol-derol-dol!" at which
Madame Gerard would exclaim, "What do I hear, Mademoiselle?" but she was
intelligent and soon corrected herself.

One Sunday morning, Combarieu, having learned of their kindness to his
child, made a visit to thank them.

Very dark, with a livid complexion, all hair and beard, and trying to
look like the head of Jesus Christ, in his long black blouse he embodied
the type of a club conspirator, a representative of the workingmen. A
Freemason, probably; a solemn drunkard, who became intoxicated oftener
on big words than on native wine, and spoke in a loud, pretentious
voice, gazing before him with large, stupid eyes swimming in a sort
of ecstasy; his whole person made one think of a boozy preacher. He
immediately inspired the engraver with respect, and dazzled him by the
fascination which the audacious exert over the timid. M