onally earned a little
money as a laundress. A grandfather, Boe, formed one of the family
group. He had been a soldier, but was now too old to serve in the ranks,
though France was waging war in Italy and Austria under her new Emperor.
Boe, however, helped to earn the family living, by begging with his
wallet from door to door.

Jasmin describes the dwelling in which this poor family lived. It was
miserably furnished. The winds blew in at every corner. There were three
ragged beds; a cupboard, containing a few bits of broken plates; a stone
bottle; two jugs of cracked earthenware; a wooden cup broken at the
edges; a rusty candlestick, used when candles were available; a small
half-black looking-glass without a frame, held against the wall by three
little nails; four broken chairs; a closet without a key; old Boe's
suspended wallet; a tailor's board, with clippings of stuff and
patched-up garments; such were the contents of the house, the family
consisting in all of nine persons.

It is well that poor children know comparatively little of their
miserable bringings-up. They have no opportunity of contrasting their
life and belongings with those of other children more richly nurtured.
The infant Jasmin slept no less soundly in his little cot stuffed with
larks' feathers than if he had been laid on a bed of down. Then he was
nourished by his mother's milk, and he grew, though somewhat lean and
angular, as fast as any king's son. He began to toddle about, and made
acquaintances with the neighbours' children.

After a few years had passed, Jasmin, being a spirited fellow, was
allowed to accompany his father at night in the concerts of rough music.
He placed a long paper cap on his head, like a French clown, and with
a horn in his hand he made as much noise, and played as many antics,
as any fool in the crowd. Though the tailor could not read, he usually
composed the verses for the Charivari; and the doggerel of the father,
mysteriously fructified, afterwards became the seed of poetry in the
son.

The performance of the Charivari was common at that time in the South
of France. When an old man proposed to marry a maiden less than half his
age, or when an elderly widow proposed to marry a man much younger
than herself, or when anything of a heterogeneous kind occurred in any
proposed union, a terrible row began. The populace assembled in the
evening of the day on which the banns had been first proclaimed, and
saluted the ha