Project Gutenberg's The Lost Child, by Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee

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Title: The Lost Child
1894

Author: Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee

Translator: J. Matthewman

Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST CHILD ***

Produced by David Widger

THE LOST CHILD

By Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee

Translated by J. Matthewman

Copyright, 1894, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

On that morning, which was the morning before Christmas, two
important events happened simultaneously--the sun rose, and so did M.
Jean-Baptiste Godefroy.

Unquestionably the sun, illuminating suddenly the whole of Paris with
its morning rays, is an old friend regarded with affection by everybody,
It is particularly welcome after a fortnight of misty atmosphere and
gray skies, when the wind has cleared the air and allowed the sun's rays
to reach the earth again. Besides all of which the sun is a person of
importance. Formerly, he was regarded as a god, and was called Osiris,
Apollyon, and I don't know what else. But do not imagine that because
the sun is so important he is of greater influence than M. Jean-Baptiste
Godefroy, millionaire banker, director of the _Comptoir General de
Credit_, administrator of several big companies, deputy and member of
the General Counsel of the Eure, officer of the Legion of Honor, etc.,
etc. And whatever opinion the sun may have about himself, he certainly
has not a higher opinion than M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy has of
_him_self. So we are authorized to state, and we consider ourselves
justified in stating, that on the morning in question, at about a
quarter to eight, the sun and M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy rose.

Certainly the manner of rising of these two great powers mentioned
was not the same. The good old sun began by doing a great many pretty
actions. As the sleet had, during the night, covered the bare branches
of the trees in the boulevard Malesherbes, where the _hotel_ Godefroy is
situated, with a powdered coating, the great magician sun amused himself
by transforming the branches into great bouquets of