hout reflecting that,
after all, the accusations brought against him were just.

What fatal idea was this candidature! But what asses! what idiots! He
drew comparisons between himself and these men, and soothed his wounded
pride with the thought of their stupidity.

Then he felt the need of seeing Rosanette. After such an exhibition of
ugly traits, and so much magniloquence, her dainty person would be a
source of relaxation. She was aware that he had intended to present
himself at a club that evening. However, she did not even ask him a
single question when he came in. She was sitting near the fire, ripping
open the lining of a dress. He was surprised to find her thus occupied.

"Hallo! what are you doing?"

"You can see for yourself," said she, dryly. "I am mending my clothes!
So much for this Republic of yours!"

"Why do you call it mine?"

"Perhaps you want to make out that it's mine!"

And she began to upbraid him for everything that had happened in France
for the last two months, accusing him of having brought about the
Revolution and with having ruined her prospects by making everybody that
had money leave Paris, and that she would by-and-by be dying in a
hospital.

"It is easy for you to talk lightly about it, with your yearly income!
However, at the rate at which things are going on, you won't have your
yearly income long."

"That may be," said Frederick. "The most devoted are always
misunderstood, and if one were not sustained by one's conscience, the
brutes that you mix yourself up with would make you feel disgusted with
your own self-denial!"

Rosanette gazed at him with knitted brows.

"Eh? What? What self-denial? Monsieur has not succeeded, it would seem?
So much the better! It will teach you to make patriotic donations. Oh,
don't lie! I know you have given them three hundred francs, for this
Republic of yours has to be kept. Well, amuse yourself with it, my good
man!"

Under this avalanche of abuse, Frederick passed from his former
disappointment to a more painful disillusion.

He withdrew to the lower end of the apartment. She came up to him.

"Look here! Think it out a bit! In a country as in a house, there must
be a master, otherwise, everyone pockets something out of the money
spent. At first, everybody knows that Ledru-Rollin is head over ears in
debt. As for Lamartine, how can you expect a poet to understand
politics? Ah! 'tis all very well for you to shake your head and to
presume