I do hope, bear up and think of the
happiness of the triumph! We will do it, dear! We will get into the
'goose's garden,' as it is called by that Bohemian Vedrine; but we shall
need endurance.

Your loving brother,

Abel de Freydet.

I have opened my letter again to say that the morning papers announce
the death of Loisillon. The stroke of fate is always affecting, even
when fully expected. What a sad event! What a loss to French literature!
And unhappily, dear, it will keep me here still longer. Please pay the
labourers. More news soon.

CHAPTER VIII.

DESTINY had willed that Loisillon, fortunate always, should be fortunate
in dying at the right moment. A week later, when houses were closed,
society broken up, the Chamber and the Institute not sitting, his
funeral train would have been composed of Academicians attentive to
their tallies, followed only by deputies from the numerous societies of
which he was Secretary or President. But business-like to the last and
after, he went off to the moment, just before the Grand Prix, choosing
a week entirely blank, when, as there was no crime, or duel, or
interesting lawsuit, or political event, the sensational obsequies of
the Permanent Secretary would be the only pastime of the town.

The funeral mass was to be at twelve o'clock, and long before that hour
an immense crowd was gathering round St. Germain des Pres. The traffic
was stopped, and no carriages but those of persons invited were allowed
to pass within the rails, strictly kept by a line of policemen posted
at intervals. Who Loisillon was, what he had done in his seventy years'
sojourn among mankind, what was the meaning of the capital letter
embroidered in silver on the funeral drapery, was known to but few in
the crowd. The one thing which struck them was the arrangement of the
protecting line, and the large space left to the dead, distance, room,
and emptiness being the constant symbols of respect and grandeur. It
had been understood that there would be a chance of seeing actresses and
persons of notoriety, and the cockneys at a distance were putting names
to the faces they recognised among the groups conversing in front of the
church.

[Illustration: There, under the black-draped porch 164]

There, under the black-draped porch, was the place for hearing the true
funeral oration on Loisillon, quite other than that which was to be
delivered presently at Mont Parna