pinot to himself. "Well, to-morrow I
shall know the whole story, for I shall go to see the Marquis d'Espard."

People who have outlived the age when a man wastes his vitality at
random, know how great an influence may be exercised on more important
events by apparently trivial incidents, and will not be surprised at the
weight here given to the following minor fact. Next day Popinot had
an attack of coryza, a complaint which is not dangerous, and generally
known by the absurd and inadequate name of a cold in the head.

The judge, who could not suppose that the delay could be serious,
feeling himself a little feverish, kept his room, and did not go to see
the Marquis d'Espard. This day lost was, to this affair, what on the Day
of Dupes the cup of soup had been, taken by Marie de Medici, which, by
delaying her meeting with Louis XIII., enabled Richelieu to arrive at
Saint-Germain before her, and recapture his royal slave.

Before accompanying the lawyer and his registering clerk to the Marquis
d'Espard's house, it may be as well to glance at the home and the
private affairs of this father of sons whom his wife's petition
represented to be a madman.

Here and there in the old parts of Paris a few buildings may still be
seen in which the archaeologist can discern an intention of decorating
the city, and that love of property, which leads the owner to give a
durable character to the structure. The house in which M. d'Espard was
then living, in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, was one of
these old mansions, built in stone, and not devoid of a certain richness
of style; but time had blackened the stone, and revolutions in the town
had damaged it both outside and inside. The dignitaries who formerly
dwelt in the neighborhood of the University having disappeared with
the great ecclesiastical foundations, this house had become the home
of industries and of inhabitants whom it was never destined to shelter.
During the last century a printing establishment had worn down the
polished floors, soiled the carved wood, blackened the walls, and
altered the principal internal arrangements. Formerly the residence of
a Cardinal, this fine house was now divided among plebeian tenants. The
character of the architecture showed that it had been built under the
reigns of Henry III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII., at the time when the
hotels Mignon and Serpente were erected in the same neighborhood, with
the palace of the Princess Palatin