chon.

"The petition is drawn up by his head-clerk Godeschal, who, as you know,
is not strong in Chinese," said the lawyer.

"'That he often leaves his children destitute of the most necessary
things; that the petitioner, notwithstanding her entreaties, can never
see them; that the said Marquis d'Espard brings them to her only once a
year; that, knowing the privations to which they are exposed, she makes
vain efforts to give them the things most necessary for their
existence, and which they require----' Oh! Madame la Marquise, this is
preposterous. By proving too much you prove nothing.--My dear boy," said
the old man, laying the document on his knee, "where is the mother who
ever lacked heart and wit and yearning to such a degree as to fall
below the inspirations suggested by her animal instinct? A mother is as
cunning to get at her children as a girl can be in the conduct of a love
intrigue. If your Marquise really wanted to give her children food and
clothes, the Devil himself would not have hindered her, heh? That is
rather too big a fable for an old lawyer to swallow!--To proceed.

"'That at the age the said children have now attained it is necessary
that steps should be taken to preserve them from the evil effects of
such an education; that they should be provided for as beseems their
rank, and that they should cease to have before their eyes the sad
example of their father's conduct;

"'That there are proofs in support of these allegations which the Court
can easily order to be produced. Many times has M. d'Espard spoken
of the judge of the Twelfth Arrondissement as a mandarin of the third
class; he often speaks of the professors of the College Henri IV. as
"men of letters"'--and that offends them! 'In speaking of the simplest
things, he says, "They were not done so in China;" in the course of
the most ordinary conversation he will sometimes allude to Madame
Jeanrenaud, or sometimes to events which happened in the time of Louis
XIV., and then sit plunged in the darkest melancholy; sometimes he
fancies he is in China. Several of his neighbors, among others one Edme
Becker, medical student, and Jean Baptiste Fremiot, a professor, living
under the same roof, are of opinion, after frequent intercourse with the
Marquis d'Espard, that his monomania with regard to everything Chinese
is the result of a scheme laid by the said Baron Jeanrenaud and the
widow his mother to bring about the deadening of all the Marquis
d'