rried his cane in the
air as if presenting arms. At breakfast, if he had won, his behavior was
gay and even affectionate; he joked roughly, but still he joked, with
Madame Descoings, with Joseph, and with his mother; gloomy, on the
contrary, when he had lost, his brusque, rough speech, his hard glance,
and his depression, frightened them. A life of debauch and the abuse of
liquors debased, day by day, a countenance that was once so handsome.
The veins of the face were swollen with blood, the features became
coarse, the eyes lost their lashes and grew hard and dry. No longer
careful of his person, Philippe exhaled the miasmas of a tavern and
the smell of muddy boots, which, to an observer, stamped him with
debauchery.

"You ought," said Madame Descoings to Philippe during the last days of
December, "you ought to get yourself new-clothed from head to foot."

"And who is to pay for it?" he answered sharply. "My poor mother hasn't
a sou; and I have five hundred francs a year. It would take my whole
year's pension to pay for the clothes; besides I have mortgaged it for
three years--"

"What for?" asked Joseph.

"A debt of honor. Giroudeau borrowed a thousand francs from Florentine
to lend me. I am not gorgeous, that's a fact; but when one thinks that
Napoleon is at Saint Helena, and has sold his plate for the means of
living, his faithful soldiers can manage to walk on their bare feet," he
said, showing his boots without heels, as he marched away.

"He is not bad," said Agathe, "he has good feelings."

"You can love the Emperor and yet dress yourself properly," said Joseph.
"If he would take any care of himself and his clothes, he wouldn't look
so like a vagabond."

"Joseph! you ought to have some indulgence for your brother," cried
Agathe. "You do the things you like, while he is certainly not in his
right place."

"What did he leave it for?" demanded Joseph. "What can it matter to him
whether Louis the Eighteenth's bugs or Napoleon's cuckoos are on the
flag, if it is the flag of his country? France is France! For my part,
I'd paint for the devil. A soldier ought to fight, if he is a soldier,
for the love of his art. If he had stayed quietly in the army, he would
have been a general by this time."

"You are unjust to him," said Agathe, "your father, who adored the
Emperor, would have approved of his conduct. However, he has consented
to re-enter the army. God knows the grief it has caused your brother to
do a th