satisfied, Mr Walpole, when you see the men who treat you with scorn and
contumely, pulled like puppets by a wire, and made to dance to any tune
the piper listeth. Hope nothing from the rich."

"And from the poor, sir?"

"Every thing," said the baron, almost solemnly. "From their hearts shall
spring the gratitude that will cheer you in your course, and solace you
in your gloom. Fame, and the grateful attachment of my humble friends,
have furnished me with a victory which the gold of the king could not
purchase. But we forget Saint Sulpice. I am not a hypocrite, as you
judge me, Mr Walpole. Be witness yourself if my presence there this day
has proved me one. Refused and cast away by this nobleman, I had nothing
to do but to dispose for a trifle of a few articles of linen which were
still in my possession. I sold them for a song, and believing failure to
be impossible, still struggled on. In that room I dwelt, living for days
upon nothing richer than bread and water, and regarding my little money
with the agony of a miser, as every demand diminished the small store.
From morn till night I laboured. I almost passed my life amongst the
dead. Well was it for me, as it proved, that my necessities drove me to
the dead-house to forget hunger, and obtain eleemosynary warmth.
Dismissed at dusk from this temporary home, I returned to the garret for
my crust, and carried the book which I had borrowed to the common
passage of the house, from whose dim lamp I received the glimmer that
served me to read, and to sustain the incensed ambitious spirit that
would not quell within me. The days glanced by quicker than the
lightning. I could not read enough; I could not acquire knowledge
sufficient, in that brief interval of days, between the acquisition of
my little wealth and the spending of my last farthing. The miserable
moment came. I was literally penniless, and without the means of
realizing any thing. For a week I retained possession of my room through
the charity of my landlord, and I was furnished with two loaves by a
good fellow who lived in the same house, and who proffered his
assistance so kindly, so generously, and well, that I received his
benefaction only that I might not give him pain by a refusal. The second
week of charity had already begun, when, entering my cold and hapless
room in my return from the hospital, I was detained at the door by
hearing my name pronounced in a loud and angry tone. I listened with a
sickenin