ping over a gravestone, and trying to spell out the words
carved on it. It was all I wanted. I own, from that moment, my
composition took shape in my mind. I was, however, still at a loss where
to find the ideal child. The little girl of whom I had caught a glimpse
would not have done at all for my purpose, even if her parents would
have consented to let her sit, which was not at all likely--she was the
prosperous-looking demoiselle of a probably prosperous bourgeoise
family, well-fed, plump, and not above seven or eight. I, on the
contrary, wanted a girl double that age just budding into womanhood, but
with the travail of the transition expressed in every feature, in every
limb. She was to represent to the most casual observer the sufferings
engendered by the struggle against tutelage for freedom. She was to bend
over the tomb of Botzaris to drag the secret of that freedom from him.
Dawning life was to drag the secret from the dead.

"That was my idea, and for several days I cudgelled my brain to find
among my models one that would, physically and morally, represent all
this. In vain; the grisettes of the Rue Fleurus and the Quartier-Latin,
in spite of all that has been said of them by the poets and novelists of
that time, were not at all the visible incarnations of lofty sentiment;
whatever pain and grief an unrequited romantic passion might entail,
they left no appreciable traces on their complexions or in their
outline; they were saucy madams, and looked it. I had communicated my
wants to some of my friends, and one of them sent me what he thought
would suit. The face was certainly a very beautiful one, as an
absolutely perfect ensemble of classical features I have never seen the
like; but there was about as much expression in it as in my hand, and,
as for the body, it was simply bursting out of its dress. I told her she
would not do, and the reason why. 'Monsieur can't expect me to go into a
consumption for two francs fifty an hour,' she remarked, bouncing out of
the room.

"I was fast becoming a nuisance to all my cronies, when, one day, going
to dine with Victor Hugo at La Mere Saget's, which was at the Barriere
du Maine, I came unexpectedly, in the Rue du Montparnasse, upon the very
girl for which I had been looking out for months. Notwithstanding her
rags, she was simply charming. She was not above fourteen or fifteen,
and, although very tall for her age, she had scarcely any flesh on her
bones. I only knew he