thousand francs. Before his marriage, Colonel Chabert
had made a will in favor of the hospitals of Paris, by which he left
them one-quarter of the fortune he might possess at the time of his
decease, the State to take the other quarter. The will was contested,
there was a forced sale, and then a division, for the attorneys went at
a pace. At the time of the settlement the monster who was then governing
France handed over to the widow, by special decree, the portion
bequeathed to the treasury."

"So that Comte Chabert's personal fortune was no more than three hundred
thousand francs?"

"Consequently so it was, old fellow!" said Crottat. "You lawyers
sometimes are very clear-headed, though you are accused of false
practices in pleading for one side or the other."

Colonel Chabert, whose address was written at the bottom of the
first receipt he had given the notary, was lodging in the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau, Rue du Petit-Banquier, with an old quartermaster of the
Imperial Guard, now a cowkeeper, named Vergniaud. Having reached the
spot, Derville was obliged to go on foot in search of his client, for
his coachman declined to drive along an unpaved street, where the ruts
were rather too deep for cab wheels. Looking about him on all sides,
the lawyer at last discovered at the end of the street nearest to the
boulevard, between two walls built of bones and mud, two shabby stone
gate-posts, much knocked about by carts, in spite of two wooden stumps
that served as blocks. These posts supported a cross beam with a
penthouse coping of tiles, and on the beam, in red letters, were the
words, "Vergniaud, dairyman." To the right of this inscription were some
eggs, to the left a cow, all painted in white. The gate was open, and no
doubt remained open all day. Beyond a good-sized yard there was a house
facing the gate, if indeed the name of house may be applied to one of
the hovels built in the neighborhood of Paris, which are like nothing
else, not even the most wretched dwellings in the country, of which they
have all the poverty without their poetry.

Indeed, in the midst of the fields, even a hovel may have a certain
grace derived from the pure air, the verdure, the open country--a hill,
a serpentine road, vineyards, quickset hedges, moss-grown thatch and
rural implements; but poverty in Paris gains dignity only by horror.
Though recently built, this house seemed ready to fall into ruins. None
of its materials had found a legit