words, which Agathe understood but too well, conveyed a shock
which was the beginning of the end. She died twenty hours later.

In the delirium which preceded death, the words, "Whom does Philippe
take after?" escaped her.

Joseph followed his mother to the grave alone. Philippe had gone, on
business it was said, to Orleans; in reality, he was driven from Paris
by the following letter, which Joseph wrote to him a moment after
their mother had breathed her last sigh:--

Monster! my poor mother has died of the shock your letter caused
her. Wear mourning, but pretend illness; I will not suffer her
assassin to stand at my side before her coffin.

Joseph B.

The painter, who no longer had the heart to paint, though his bitter
grief sorely needed the mechanical distraction which labor is wont to
give, was surrounded by friends who agreed with one another never to
leave him entirely alone. Thus it happened that Bixiou, who loved
Joseph as much as a satirist can love any one, was sitting in the
atelier with a group of other friends about two weeks after Agathe's
funeral. The servant entered with a letter, brought by an old woman,
she said, who was waiting below for the answer.

Monsieur,--To you, whom I scarcely dare to call my brother, I am
forced to address myself, if only on account of the name I bear.--

Joseph turned the page and read the signature. The name "Comtesse
Flore de Brambourg" made him shudder. He foresaw some new atrocity on
the part of his brother.

"That brigand," he cried, "is the devil's own. And he calls himself a
man of honor! And he wears a lot of crosses on his breast! And he
struts about at court instead of being bastinadoed! And the scoundrel
is called Monsieur le Comte!"

"There are many like him," said Bixiou.

"After all," said Joseph, "the Rabouilleuse deserves her fate,
whatever it is. She is not worth pitying; she'd have had my neck wrung
like a chicken's without so much as saying, 'He's innocent.'"

Joseph flung away the letter, but Bixiou caught it in the air, and
read it aloud, as follows:--

Is it decent that the Comtesse Bridau de Brambourg should die in a
hospital, no matter what may have been her faults? If such is to
be my fate, if such is your determination and that of monsieur le
comte, so be it; but if so, will you, who are the friend of Doctor
Bianchon, ask him for a permit to let me enter a hospital?

The person who carries this letter has