onsequence of the conversation he had
overheard during the time Morel was arrested by the bailiffs. The son of
Bras Rouge discovered that she lived, Boulevard Saint-Denis, No. 11.

Rigolette apprised Madeleine Morel, with considerable delicacy, of the
fit of lunacy which had attacked the lapidary, and of Louise's
imprisonment. At first, Madeleine wept bitterly, and uttered terrible
shrieks; then, the first burst of her grief over, the poor creature,
weak and overcome, consoled herself as well as she could by seeing that
she and her children were surrounded by the many comforts which she owed
to the generosity of their benefactor.

As to Rodolph, his thoughts were very poignant when he considered the
disclosures of Louise. "Nothing is more common," he said, "than this
corrupting of the female servant by the master, either by consent or
against it; sometimes by terror and surprise, sometimes by the imperious
nature of those relations which create servitude. This depravity,
descending from the rich to the poor, despising (in its selfish desire)
the sanctity of the domestic hearth,--this depravity, still most
deplorable when it is voluntarily submitted to, becomes hideous,
frightful, when it is satisfied with violence. It is an impure and
brutal slavery, an ignoble and barbarous tyranny over a fellow-creature,
who in her fright replies to the solicitations of her master by her
tears, and to his declarations with a shudder of fear and disgust. And
then," continued Rodolph, "what is the consequence to the female? Almost
invariably there follow degradation, misery, prostitution, theft, and
sometimes infanticide! And yet the laws are, as yet, strangers to this
crime! Every accomplice of a crime has the punishment of that crime;
every receiver is considered as guilty as the thief. That is justice.
But when a man wantonly seduces a young, innocent, and pure girl,
renders her a mother, abandons her, leaving her but shame, disgrace,
despair, and driving her, perchance, to infanticide, a crime for which
she forfeits her life, is this man considered as her accomplice? Pooh!
What, then, follows? Oh, 'tis nothing,--nothing but a little
love-affair! the whim of the day for a pair of bright eyes. Then she is
left, and he looks out for the next. Still more, it is just possible
that the man may be of an original, an inquisitive turn, perhaps, at
the same time, an excellent brother and son, and may go to the bar of
the criminal court and s