r the way in which he had vented the spirit of perpetual
opposition peculiar to the Paris shopkeeping classes. Two big tears
coursed down his scared face--the face of a white-haired child.

And then one morning in August, amidst the busy awakening of the
markets, Claude Lantier, sauntering about in the thick of the arriving
vegetables, with his waist tightly girded by his red sash, came to grasp
Madame Francois's hand close by Saint Eustache. She was sitting on her
carrots and turnips, and her long face looked very sad. The artist, too,
was gloomy, notwithstanding the bright sun which was already softening
the deep-green velvet of the mountains of cabbages.

"Well, it's all over now," he said. "They are sending him back again.
He's already on his way to Brest, I believe."

Madame Francois made a gesture of mute grief. Then she gently waved her
hand around, and murmured in a low voice; "Ah, it is all Paris's doing,
this villainous Paris!"

"No, no, not quite that; but I know whose doing it is, the contemptible
creatures!" exclaimed Claude, clenching his fists. "Do you know, Madame
Francois, there was nothing too ridiculous for those fellows in the
court to say! Why, they even went ferreting in a child's copy-books!
That great idiot of a Public Prosecutor made a tremendous fuss over
them, and ranted about the respect due to children, and the wickedness
of demagogical education! It makes me quite sick to think of it all!"

A shudder of disgust shook him, and then, burying himself more deeply
in his discoloured cloak, he resumed: "To think of it! A man who was
as gentle as a girl! Why, I saw him turn quite faint at seeing a pigeon
killed! I couldn't help smiling with pity when I saw him between two
gendarmes. Ah, well, we shall never see him again! He won't come back
this time."

"He ought to have listened to me," said Madame Francois, after a pause,
"and have come to live at Nanterre with my fowls and rabbits. I was
very fond of him, you see, for I could tell that he was a good-hearted
fellow. Ah, we might have been so happy together! It's a sad pity. Well,
we must bear it as best we can, Monsieur Claude. Come and see me one of
these days. I'll have an omelet ready for you."

Her eyes were dim with tears; but all at once she sprang up like a brave
woman who bears her sorrows with fortitude.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "here's old Mother Chantemesse coming to buy some
turnips of me. The fat old lady's as sprightly as ever