he fickle seducer and the seduced and forsaken girl, would be
laughed at as a visionary. And if this simple man were to assert that
without a father there would, in all probability, not be offspring,
Society would exclaim against the atrocity,--the folly! And it would be
right,--quite right; for, after all, this gay youth who might say these
fine things to the jury, however little he might like tragic emotions,
might yet go tranquilly to see his mistress executed,--executed for
child-murder, a crime to which he was an accessory; nay more, the
author, in consequence of his shameless abandonment! Does not this
charming protection, granted to the male portion of society for certain
gay doings suggested by the god of Love, show plainly that France still
sacrifices to the Graces, and is still the most gallant nation in the
world?"

CHAPTER III.

JACQUES FERRAND.

At the period when the events were passing which we are now relating, at
one end of the Rue du Sentier a long old wall extended, covered with a
coat of whitewash, and the top garnished with a row of broken
flint-glass bottles; this wall, bounding on one side the garden of
Jacques Ferrand, the notary, terminated with a _corps de logis_ facing
the street, only one story high, with garrets. Two large escutcheons of
gilt copper, emblems of the notarial residence, flanked the worm-eaten
_porte cochere_, of which the primitive colour was no longer to be
distinguished under the mud which covered it. This entrance led to an
open passage; on the right was the lodge of an old porter, almost deaf,
who was to the body of tailors what M. Pipelet was to the body of
boot-makers; on the left a stable, used as a cellar, washhouse,
woodhouse, and the establishment of a rising colony of rabbits belonging
to the porter, who was dissipating the sorrows of a recent widowhood by
bringing up these domestic animals. Beside the lodge was the opening of
a twisting staircase, narrow and dark, leading to the office, as was
announced to the clients by a hand painted black, whose forefinger was
directed towards these words, also painted in black upon the wall, "The
Office on the first floor."

On one side of a large paved court, overgrown with grass, were empty
stables; on the other side, a rusty iron gate, which shut in the garden;
at the bottom the pavilion, inhabited only by the notary. A flight of
eight or ten steps of disjointed stones, which were moss-grown and
time-worn, led t