llow silk,
whose armorial bearings were surmounted with a count's coronet. He was
on his way to a fete at the Elysee-Bourbon; the wheels splashed his
mother and brother as he waved them a patronizing greeting.

"He's going it, that fellow!" said Joseph to his mother. "Nevertheless,
he might send us something better than mud in our faces."

"He has such a fine position, in such high society, that we ought not to
blame him for forgetting us," said Madame Bridau. "When a man rises to
so great a height, he has many obligations to repay, many sacrifices to
make; it is natural he should not come to see us, though he may think of
us all the same."

"My dear fellow," said the Duc de Maufrigneuse one evening, to the new
Comte de Brambourg, "I am sure that your addresses will be favorably
received; but in order to marry Amelie de Soulanges, you must be free to
do so. What have you done with your wife?"

"My wife?" said Philippe, with a gesture, look, and accent which
Frederick Lemaitre was inspired to use in one of his most terrible
parts. "Alas! I have the melancholy certainty of losing her. She has not
a week to live. My dear duke, you don't know what it is to marry beneath
you. A woman who was a cook, and has the tastes of a cook! who dishonors
me--ah! I am much to be pitied. I have had the honor to explain my
position to Madame la Dauphine. At the time of the marriage, it was a
question of saving to the family a million of francs which my uncle had
left by will to that person. Happily, my wife took to drinking; at her
death, I come into possession of that million, which is now in the hands
of Mongenod and Sons. I have thirty thousand francs a year in the five
per cents, and my landed property, which is entailed, brings me in forty
thousand more. If, as I am led to suppose, Monsieur de Soulanges gets
a marshal's baton, I am on the high-road with my title of Comte de
Brambourg, to becoming general and peer of France. That will be the
proper end of an aide-de-camp of the Dauphin."

After the Salon of 1823, one of the leading painters of the day, a most
excellent man, obtained the management of a lottery-office near the
Markets, for the mother of Joseph Bridau. Agathe was fortunately able,
soon after, to exchange it on equal terms with the incumbent of another
office, situated in the rue de Seine, in a house where Joseph was able
to have his atelier. The widow now hired an agent herself, and was no
longer an expense to her s