t I
fancy I shall be able to manage with thirty thousand francs."

"If we gave you fifty thousand francs," says M. Emile Pereire, "would
you give us some breathing-time?"

"Yes."

And Lamartine pockets the fifty thousand francs, thanks to his
eloquence.

A better man, though not so great a poet, was Beranger, whom I knew for
many years, though my intimacy with him did not commence until a few
months after the February revolution, when I met him coming out of the
Palais-Bourbon. "I shall feel obliged," he said, "if you will see me
home, for I am not at all well; these violent scenes are not at all to
my taste." Then, with a very wistful smile, he went on: "I have been
accused of having held 'the plank across the brook over which
Louis-Philippe went to the Tuileries.' I wish I could be the bridge
across the channel on which he would return now. Certainly I would have
liked a republic, but not such a one as we are having in there,"
pointing to the home of the Constituent Assembly. A short while after,
Beranger tendered his resignation as deputy.

He lived at Passy then, in the Rue Basse; the number, if I mistake not,
was twenty-three. He had lived in the same quarter fifteen years before,
for I used to see him take his walks when I was a lad, but it was
difficult for Beranger to live in the same spot for any length of time.
He was, first of all, of a very nomadic disposition; secondly, his
quondam friends would leave him no peace. There was a constant inroad of
shady individuals who, on the pretext that he was "the people's poet,"
drained his purse and his cellar. Previous to his return to Passy, he
had been boarding with a respectable widow in the neighbourhood of
Vincennes. He had adopted the name of Bonnin, and his landlady took him
to be a modest, retired tradesman, living upon a small annuity. When his
birthday came round, she and her daughters found out that they had
entertained an angel unawares, for carriage after carriage drove up, and
in a few hours the small dwelling was filled with magnificent flowers,
the visitors meanwhile surrounding Beranger, and offering him their
congratulations. As a matter of course, the rumour spread, and Beranger
fled to Passy, where he invited Mdlle. Judith Frere to join him once
more. The retreat had been discovered, and he resigned himself to be
badgered more than usual for the sake of the neighbourhood--the Bois de
Boulogne was hard by; but the municipal council of Passy, in