ion of a
lawyer; he was pursuing his law studies after the manner of Bahorel.
Bossuet had not much domicile, sometimes none at all. He lodged now with
one, now with another, most often with Joly. Joly was studying medicine.
He was two years younger than Bossuet.

Joly was the "malade imaginaire" junior. What he had won in medicine was
to be more of an invalid than a doctor. At three and twenty he thought
himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue
in the mirror. He affirmed that man becomes magnetic like a needle, and
in his chamber he placed his bed with its head to the south, and the
foot to the north, so that, at night, the circulation of his blood
might not be interfered with by the great electric current of the globe.
During thunder storms, he felt his pulse. Otherwise, he was the gayest
of them all. All these young, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences lived
in harmony together, and the result was an eccentric and agreeable
being whom his comrades, who were prodigal of winged consonants, called
Jolllly. "You may fly away on the four L's," Jean Prouvaire said to
him.[23]

Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is
an indication of a sagacious mind.

All these young men who differed so greatly, and who, on the whole, can
only be discussed seriously, held the same religion: Progress.

All were the direct sons of the French Revolution. The most giddy of
them became solemn when they pronounced that date: '89. Their fathers in
the flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires, it matters not what;
this confusion anterior to themselves, who were young, did not concern
them at all; the pure blood of principle ran in their veins. They
attached themselves, without intermediate shades, to incorruptible right
and absolute duty.

Affiliated and initiated, they sketched out the ideal underground.

Among all these glowing hearts and thoroughly convinced minds, there was
one sceptic. How came he there? By juxtaposition. This sceptic's name
was Grantaire, and he was in the habit of signing himself with this
rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in
anything. Moreover, he was one of the students who had learned the most
during their course at Paris; he knew that the best coffee was to be had
at the Cafe Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Cafe Voltaire, that
good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard
du Maine, sp